Because it’s not working, as evidenced by any of the following:
- You still have diabetes. Chances are, your doctors believe that diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease, primarily because that is what they were taught. That is not true, unless you let it be. Your Hemoglobin A1c may be going up (or simply not going down) . . . you may be developing complications such as neuropathy, retinopathy, kidney disease, heart disease, etc. . . The bottom line is: If you’re still dependent on medications to control your diabetes, you’re still vulnerable to its myriad devastating effects on the body.
- You’re gaining weight. Unless you are on metformin, you are most likely gaining weight with your current diabetes medications, particularly with insulin and sulfonylureas (glipizide, glyburide, etc.). Despite the fact that the ADA suggests that following their dietary advice will help you lose weight to improve your diabetes control, their reliance on insulin to control the elevated glucoses that result from the carbohydrates (“healthful grains”, etc.) they recommend you eat is exactly what drives weight gain. Everyone gains weight on insulin, which subsequently makes you more insulin resistant and worsens your diabetes.
- You’re becoming more insulin resistant. Are you taking more medications than when you were first diagnosed? Do you need more insulin to control your glucoses than before? That’s because you are developing more insulin resistance, the very mechanism that caused your diabetes (and hypertension and made you overweight) in the first place.
Stop doing what’s not working. The conventional dietary advice for diabetes does little more than perpetuate your diabetes and allow your diabetes to continue wreaking havoc on your body. Before the “discovery” of insulin and the ability to manufacture insulin, dietary carbohydrate restriction was THE treatment for diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2, because it worked. Modern-day pharmaceuticals and dietary advice are not reversing diabetes; rather, the prevalence of diabetes is rising.
Note: Any reference to “diabetes” is generally in regards to Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. References to Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus will be specified.