Prior to the advent of insulin, in the 1920's, diabetes was treated with a low-carbohydrate diet. These diets were aimed at controlling sugar in the urine, a stark contrast to the current ADA suggested diet of low-fat and high-carbohydrate. In fact the diet recommended by Dr. Elliot Joslin consisted of approximately 20% protein, 75% fat and 5% from carbohydrates.

Well in the early century - this diet seemed to hold most diabetics on course just fine without the magic pills available today. It is also remarkable that the secondary complications and epidemic growth of diabetes was not a hot topic, either. Researchers decided to give Dr. Joslin's diet another go in a modern environment. The results of this low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (LCKD) improved glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes such that diabetes medications were discontinued or reduced in most participants - 17 out of 21 completing the study. The original study had 28 participants, with 8 dropouts. The LCKD can be very effective at lowering blood glucose. Participants also experienced reductions in body weight, waist circumference, and body fat.

It's funny how this study, conducted in 2005, produced results seen almost 100 years prior. LCKD appears to be a reasonable cure for type 2 diabetes. If most diabetes was adequately treated back in days of 1923 without the assistance of pills and insulin - why is it such a mess nowadays? Where did we go wrong?

Would you like to reduce your daily insulin requirements by a third or stop all diabetes medicines? Lofty goals, yes - but given the Eat To Live program - it's quite possible.

Regardless of my attempts to downgrade insulin dose in the last 15 years - my blood sugars would not take the hint. Had I known Dr. Fuhrman had figured this one out long ago - instead of badgering feats of diabetic noncompliance I would have picked up his book, Eat To Live. Dr. Fuhrman explains the best diet for humans to live longer in good health is also the best diet for one with diabetes. A diet comprised mostly in nature's perfect foods-green vegetables, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, garlic, raw nuts and seeds and limited fresh fruit, allows for people to eat as much as they want and still lose weight, drop their cholesterol, and their blood pressure relatively quickly.

The Eat To Live dietary style is a vegetable-based diet designed to maximize nutrient per calorie density. It is the most effective treatment for those with diabetes, more effective than drugs. For a type 2 diabetic, this approach has resulted in complete reversal of the diabetic condition in the vast majority of patients and for a type 1 diabetic it solves the problems with excessive highs and lows and prevents the typical dangerous complications that too frequently befall those with diabetes. Joel Fuhrman, M.D is a board certified family physician specializing in nutritional medicine for overweight and diabetic patents.