What Fasting Can Do For People With Type 2 Diabetes

“Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.” – Hippocrates.

Fasting has not received as much attention as it should when it comes to the world of health and medicine. That’s because you can’t really make any money off of it. The ‘pharmaceutical science’ studies used in medical schools to teach doctors about human health simply don’t focus enough on fasting for doctors to be knowledgeable in the subject. Doctors also learn very little about nutrition and are trained to prescribe drugs as a result.

Dr. Jason Fung is trying to change all that. A Toronto based nephrologist, he completed medical school and internal medicine at the University of Toronto before finishing his nephrology fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles at the Cedars-Sinai hospital. He joined Scarborough General Hospital in 2001 where he continues to practice and change people’s lives.

He is one of a growing number of scientists and doctors to create awareness about the tremendous health benefits that can be achieved from fasting. It’s one of the oldest dietary interventions in the world and has been practiced for thousands of years. If properly practiced fasting was bad or harmful in any way, as some doctors suggest, it would have been known by now, and studies would not be emerging showing the health benefits that can be achieved from fasting regularly.

The Research

For example, a study published in the journal Cell shows how a fasting diet can trigger the pancreas to regenerate itself, which works to control blood sugar levels and reverse symptoms of diabetes.

There is absolutely no evidence, for the average person, that fasting can be dangerous. If you’re on prescription medication, or experience other medical problems, then there are obviously exceptions. But it’s quite clear that the human body was designed to go long periods of time without food, and that it’s completely natural.

Dr. Fung, Fasting and Diabetes

Dr. Fung published a book, co-authored with Jimmy Moore, titled The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate Day, and Extended Fasting. It’s a great book that puts to rest the fears and myths associated with extended water fasting. He also published The Obesity Code: Unlocking The Secrets of Weight Loss.

Fung, like 90 percent of doctors out there was conventionally oriented. He is a kidney specialist, and many of his patients had/have type 2 diabetes as a result of that. It eventually became clear to him that something was very wrong with the conventional treatment of type 2 diabetes.

With type 2 diabetes, patients who take insulin and follow the recommended dietary guidelines would still have several complications, mainly kidney disease. Because of this, they can go blind, require dialysis or even require amputations.

In an interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Fung addresses multiple myths and issues that are commonly brought up about fasting. He dives into explaining how fasting does not burn muscle, how it can reverse diabetes, addresses the ‘Starvation Mode’ myth, explains the role of insulin, discusses different variations of fasting and much more.

Be sure to visit his website, where you can find information on him, his practice, results, lectures and article that he continually publishes every month.

“Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives their doctor.” – Egyptian pyramid inscription.

yogaesoteric
February 24, 2019