We have repeatedly, in previous columns, drawn the reader’s attention to the role played by animal products and processed foods in the development of Type 2 diabetes and its many complications. Both the animal fat and the animal protein intakes intensify insulin resistance, which leads to Type 2 diabetes (previously referred to as adult-onset diabetes). 

It is now also well agreed that elevated consumption of the same animal products and processed plant foods increases the risk not only of Type 2 diabetes but also of cardiovascular disease and other non-communicable diseases. The present routine treatment of Type 2 diabetes by conventional medicine consists in prescribing pharmacological drugs like Metformin and or Insulin that unfortunately only treat symptoms but fail to tackle the root cause of the disease, which is the wrong diet consumed by the patient. 

This now ‘conventional’ treatment was encouraged after, in 1921, a Canadian physician named Frederick Banting and his assistant, Charles Best ground up a dog’s pancreas and injected their concoction into diabetic dogs, which controlled the animals’ diabetes, at least temporarily. Shortly thereafter, insulin was identified as the cause of the improvement of the animals’ diabetes. Ever since then, the conventional treatment of diabetes has been with pharmacological drugs. 

And yet, thousands of years ago, in ancient Egypt, diabetes was described (based on the patient frequently passing urine) as being “like the River Nile between the thighs”. Guess what the ancient Egyptian physicians prescribed as the recommended treatment? A diet consisting of wheat grains, grapes, honey, and berries! And a commonly overlooked fact is that prior to when insulin was discovered, modern-day physicians would recommend oatmeal as the preferred treatment for diabetes. However, after the discovery and mass production of insulin, this nutritional approach did become increasingly forgotten. 

And this, in spite of multiple long-term follow-up studies in the United States such as the Nurses' Health Study (1984-2014), the Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2017), and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2016) that examined  (among other things) the association between the intake of the individuals’ whole grain foods and the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Close to 200,000 women and men were followed for up to 30 years, who self-reported developing Type 2 diabetes and provided supplementary information on their lifestyle and eating habits. 

The unanimous conclusion of all these studies was that ‘Higher consumption of total whole grains and several commonly eaten whole grain foods, including whole grain breakfast cereal, oatmeal, brown rice, added bran, and wheat germ, was significantly associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes’. These findings provide further support for our recommendation of increasing whole grain consumption as part of a healthy whole food plant-based (WFPB) diet for the prevention of Type 2 diabetes and other non-communicable diseases. 

In spite of the obvious benefits that patients derive from adopting healthier eating habits, METI’s more than 10 years experience of in educating and empowering individuals to make better dietary choices highlights that it remains a challenging task, especially with commercial interests incessantly enticing the patients with appetizing but unhealthy foods. Lately, as a first step in getting patients to adopt the WFPB diet, we encourage all diabetics to at least have one meal a day with the oatmeal recipe that is found in METI’s WFPB Cookbook: uncooked, large sized, oatmeal mixed with plant milk and fruits. It is an economical, yet highly effective tool to achieve better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes and as a first step to switching to a full WFPB diet. 

Please note: If you, the reader, are diabetic and want to try this oatmeal diet, you must inform your physician of your plan so that he closely monitors you and can rapidly reduce your blood sugar drugs or else you will become dangerously overmedicated. Because, the downside of trying oatmeal on a regular basis is that it may work a little too well so it must be done under close medical supervision. 

In the next week’s Column, we will discuss what it is that makes oatmeal so effective in controlling diabetes. We invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Motootua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) and become acquainted with METI’s whole food plant-based diet and Lifestyle Change program. Or call us at 30550. Learning how to follow these Programs might be your ‘game changer’!