To many of you, the claim that diabetes can be reversed through nutrition may sound like wishful thinking. The mainstream medicine the belief is that “once a diabetic, always a diabetic.” Yet, I have witnessed otherwise—and I am not alone. Let’s explore more about how this is done.

Healing diabetes naturally The common blood test called Hemoglobin A1C tells your blood sugar level (average) over the previous 3 months. That’s because it is a measure of sugar molecules attached to red blood cells, which live approximately 90 days.

Milton, 64, is my patient who came to me with a recent previous Hemoglobin A1C level of 11.4 mg/dl—elevated well above the goal for diabetics (below 7.0).

For 4 months he went through a healthy lifestyle program much like the one I developed and coached my patients through in 2008-2010. He learned to prepare and consume mostly raw and whole foods.  He also took supplements for intestinal and metabolism health, got off his diabetes medicines, and lost approximately 30 pounds in the process. Now his hemoglobin A1C is in the non-diabetic range, at 6.4 mg/dl.

What Milton did is not easy.  Like all of us, he had strong food cravings and eating habits that he had been developing and reinforcing for decades. He had to break those and reintroduce new foods that took many weeks for his brain and mouth to adapt to. He had additional motivation: he suffered a heart attack the previous year and vowed to get healthy once and for all.

Supplements that help reverse type 2 diabetes When are nutrient supplements needed to reverse diabetes and for how long? I often see patients who have a long (and expensive) list of nutrient supplements with the hope of preventing the need for prescription medications.

I prefer the smallest number of supplements for only the time really needed to get feeling well and reversing illness. These would include a green drink (or fresh juicing from leafy green vegetables) daily to get your plant-based minerals and vitamins.

Next, I recommend intestinal healing supplements here: Digestive enzymes (a blend) with each meal, especially when you increase consumption of raw foods Probiotic blend containing at least 20 Billion colony-forming units (cfu) per capsule, daily, with a meal.

Then I would recommend two or three others from this list: Alpha Lipoic Acid aids in conversion of blood sugar into energy; shown to increase insulin sensitivity after four weeks of daily use Banaba leaf extract: insulin-like plant with corosolic acid that transports glucose from your bloodstream to your cells Cinnamon bark extract: increases glucose metabolism, proven to lower fasting blood sugar in diabetic and pre-diabetic patients. Gymnema sylvestre (leaf) – blocks the taste of sugary foods when placed on your tongue minutes before eating. It has been shown to help improve blood sugar control in diabetics. Fenugreek, mulberry, American Ginseng: each of these have been shown to improve diabetes individually and as a combination supplement.

Foods that reverse type 2 diabetes You can cure type 2 diabetes by implementing a 100 percent life raw-whole food diet. This reverses the underlying inflammation and metabolic dysfunction of diabetes. In time, it turns off your “diabetic” gene expression.

The key to successfully converting to such a nutrient-rich diet is to learn the spices and sauces that make it tasty and filling. This must happen for it to stick to become a lifestyle.

Now let me introduce again, the champion of reversing diabetes, Gabriel Cousens, M.D. With the assistance of raw cuisine chefs and his coaching staff in Patagonia, Arizona, Gabriel Cousens, M.D. currently has the most successful program for reversing type 2 diabetes that I am aware of.  If you have watched it yet, please follow this link to a 5- minute YouTube documentary introduction, “Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days Trailer” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Le4VjQPlg.

His reversing diabetes clinic experience starts with a 3-week onsite intensive training, and it continues for a year with twice monthly follow-up calls with a Tree of Life nurse, plus a year of monthly internet webcast group meetings with Dr. Cousens. The focus is nutritional and lifestyle changes, exercise, and meditation. His website tells us some statistics. Of 110 participants in his program: 31% of type 1 diabetics were off insulin after 3 weeks with approximately 10% having blood sugars consistently under 100 mg/dl. 28% of insulin-requiring type 2 diabetics reversed their diabetes after 3 weeks with no insulin and a fasting blood sugar (FBS) of less than 100 mg/dl. 60% of the type 2 diabetics were off all oral hypoglycemic medications after 3 weeks with FBS less than 100 mg/dl. 100 percent of pre-diabetics were “healed.”

Take 12 minutes and watch an exciting short video to look more closely at what raw foods look like and how patients made the transition easily at Dr. Cousens’ Arizona clinic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O6gH6QbPfw.

Feelings required to heal type 2 diabetes Achieving a cure for diabetes will also require you to feel good emotionally. When you feel good emotionally, you are able to make healthy lifestyle choices. Contrariwise, when you feel stressed, worried, or upset emotionally, you will not take the time to purchase and prepare nutrient-rich foods; you will not sleep well; you will not enjoy exercise; you will not activate the energy of healing.

Nearly ten years ago I created a program with 5-10 min of daily audio guidance for 90 consecutive days. The participants learned the important concepts of mostly raw whole food eating, while also feeling a deeper spiritual awareness through meditations and journaling included.

For a more detailed explanation of raw food eating, see this nearly 2-hour presentation by Dr. Cousens here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5dCfkwHvo4

Another great presentation is by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. who explains how to eat to prevent and reverse diabetes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhr-7VLkBy8

To disease reversal rather than disease management, Michael Cutler, M.D.