Originally Posted by
GeorgeBMac
Your experience is unusual as Whole Food Plant Based diets have been proven to prevent and even reverse Type II Diabetes. Because, due to the lack of excess fat which creates insulin resistance, the body processes sugars far more efficiently.
Ornish also suggests that a person can eat on a Spectrum -- and come as close as they want (or need) to what he terms his "reversal diet". Perhaps you were not on his full reversal (WFPB) diet? You may have been taking in too much fat and/or too many refined carbs.
For myself, my sugar levels (both fasting and non-fasting) as well as my A1C are better now under a WFPB diet than they were previously. In fact, they are not only lower but more stable. That is, before starting the WFPB diet, I had to be careful taking in carbs or I suffered from severe hypoglycemia -- but I have not experienced that even once in the two years I have been on a WFPB diet. Again, high fat diets create insulin resistance which then creates the insulin swings that you complain of...
But, I do find that I need to eat every 3-4 hours. But that's OK. Better to eat smaller more frequent meals than to overload with a few.
As for "needing" all three types of fat, the jury is still out on that -- at least as far as the massive quantities proposed by those who say those things. Perfectly adequate levels can easily be had from whole plant foods.
p.s. As Michael Greger says: 'It's not plants vs meat. It's whole plant foods vs all the rest'. Too many people confuse a WFPB based diet with a 'high carb' or a 'low fat' diet. While a WFPB may be high in carbs, it is not a 'high carb' or even a 'low fat' diet. Instead, carbs, fats and protein come naturally from whole plant sources.
I was on an ultra-low fat < 10% diet. That was the problem. It was right out of Ornish's book, his recipes. That was 20 years ago and perhaps he's seen the error of his ways and changed his hardline approach. In any case, no researcher other than Dr. Ornish has observed this reversal, no matter what diet was used.
No, high fat diets do not create insulin resistance. That is the effect of low fat/low protein diets. Adding a sufficient quantity of either of those two macronutrients prevents RH.
Claims of improved health remarkably similar to yours are also made by the low-carbers and paleos on this forum. Perhaps it's not so much any particular diet as it is being conscious of what you eat and avoiding junk food. I'll repeat that researcher's quote which I posted in 95:
There have been no rigorous, long-term studies comparing contenders for best diet laurels using methodology that precludes bias and confounding, and for many reasons such studies are unlikely. In the absence of such direct comparisons, claims for the established superiority of any one specific diet over others are exaggerated. The weight of evidence strongly supports a theme of healthful eating while allowing for variations on that theme. A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches.
It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of a vegan diet. I'm saying that it's very difficult maintain that diet for a long time. I know many people who've tried it and quit. It's especially difficult for athletes as the protein requirements require either other than "whole plant foods" or quantities of foods which don't normally make up that large a portion of a person's diet. It's not like just giving up processed foods and animal products. It's a whole 'nother eating pratice. It takes a lot of research and tremendous discipline. And . . . the results are uncertain. We are born eating animal products. We evolved eating animal products. It's tough to say that didn't work our for us as a species.