Blog

Type 2 Diabetes  |  Plant Based Treaty Diet Change Series

“Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food.”
– Hippocrates

This inspiring quote by the famous Greek physician and philosopher is more relevant than ever. Plants have the power to heal us and switching to a whole food plant-based diet can improve our health and even prevent and reverse many diseases.

In addition to the health benefits of eating more plants and less animal products, going plant-based helps reduce greenhouse gasses and climate change and enables us to live safely within our planetary boundaries, a core mission of the Plant Based Treaty.

Moving to a plant-based diet also helps end the horrific suffering that animals such as cows, sheep, pigs, birds, and fish endure on factory farms in the animal agriculture industry.

This new blog series on diet change will reference nine major diseases that Dr. Michael Klaper spoke about in his keynote address at the 5th annual Canadian Plant-Based Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine Conference in Toronto. His presentation titled Mechanisms of Disease Reversal Utilizing Plant-Based Nutrition: Why and How Does It Work? was packed with important medical information.

In addition to being an internationally-recognized physician, Dr. Klaper is an educator and speaker on diet and health, and endorser of the Plant Based Treaty.

In his keynote address, Dr. Klaper draws upon his experience as an attending physician at True North Health Centre in Santa Rosa, California, where he began working part-way through his successful medical career. He explains that most of the patients arriving at the health center were overweight if not clinically obese with multiple medical issues. They were all put on a diet of whole plant foods with no added salt, sugar, or oils, and he shares that all nine diseases “improve under the influence of a whole foods plant-based diet.”

Health Issue: Type 2 Diabetes

“Diabetes, or diabetes mellitus, is a group of chronic conditions in which the body is unable to efficiently convert food into energy…Of the 37 million Americans who have diabetes, the vast majority (around 90–95 percent) have Type 2 diabetes.”
– Forks Over Knives

Studies:

Dr. Klaper explains the keys to understanding Type 2 diabetes dates back to 1927 and a study by Dr. J Shirley Sweeney. Dr. Sweeney put medical students on a high sugar diet for two days and monitored the results. He proved that eating a lot of sugar did not cause diabetes and didn’t raise their blood sugar. His second group of medical students he put on a high fat diet for two days. After those two days every single one of the young subjects has a grossly diabetic glucose curve, as Dr. Klaper explains in his presentation.

“It was the fat clogging up their insulin receptors. Type two diabetes is driven by the fat in the diet, not by the sugar.” Rather the sugar is the “resulting effect of clogging up the insulin receptors”.

Dr. Klaper references Intramyocellular Lipids and Insulin Resistance, a study that can be read on PubMed for more details. Another study on PubMed, A Plant-based Diet for the Prevention and Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes, concludes, “Observational studies strongly support the role of plant-based diets, and components of plant-based diets, in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.”

Success Stories:

Many people have reversed their type two diabetes by switching to a whole-foods plant-based diet and there are multiple success stories proving plants can heal and reverse illness. Mayor Eric Adams of New York City actively promotes a plant-based diet and brought Vegan Fridays to the largest school system in the United States. Adams knows first hand the importance of healthy eating because he reversed his own Type 2 diabetes in only three months on a whole-food plant-based diet. Details of his success are outlined in his book Healthy At Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses.

Within three months of adopting a plant-based diet, Mayor Eric Adams lost 35 pounds, lowered his cholesterol by 30 points, restored his vision, and reversed his diabetes.

 Dr. Klaper explains, “At True North instead of raising their doses of insulin and beta blockers, we put them on a diet of whole plant foods with no added salt, sugar, or oils.”

He says the patients ate big bowls of oatmeal in the morning with lots of fruits and nuts and various plant milks such as oat milk. “Every lunch and dinner had a big colourful salad, hearty vegetable soups, big plates of steamed green and yellow vegetables, and a host of filling entrees [including] chilies, stews, soups, and curries.”

“They ate these healthy foods day after day and the changes we saw in these participants was nothing short of remarkable”, he says.

Among so many health improvements in these patients was the reduction of medications for diabetes. “We were witnessing disease reversal.”

The documentary Forks Over Knives is a great film to watch on the subject that follows the path of Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn as their groundbreaking research proves “…Type 2 diabetes can almost always be prevented—and in many cases reversed—by adopting a whole-food, plant-based diet.”

Recipes:

Forks Over Knives has a website packed with healthy recipes, including these amazing grain recipes to get you started. The 4-Bean Jamaican Ital Stew is loaded with healthy lima beans, squash, and coconut milk; and the Rainbow Veggie Barley Bowl is packed with delicious foods including sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, parsley, dill pickles, and barley.

For breakfast try a Mango Smoothie Bowl fortified with oats and chia seeds and loaded with fresh healthy fruit.

Bon Appetit!

Disclaimer: This blog should not replace medical advice from a physician and is for informational purposes only.

More from the blog