Reversing type 2 diabetes

How Dr Goodman helped Rajiv, a committed vegetarian, overcome type 2 diabetes by radically changing his diet and lifestyle

Rajiv was 42 and in shock. He had just been told by his local hospital that he had developed type 2 diabetes. It had not come completely out of the blue; his blood sugars had been in the "prediabetic" warning range for a couple of years.

Now the hospital had offered him the drug metformin to lower his blood sugar levels. He had tried the drug, and it had lowered his blood sugar, but he didn't feel good on it. He became nauseated and had gut ache and a strange taste in his mouth.

Rajiv was keen to try a more natural approach, but his lifestyle was anything but natural. He worked internationally as a management consultant, so he was constantly traveling, staying in hotels, and eating meals prepared by others.

I asked him to keep two one-week food diaries, one at home and one while away working. The at-home diary showed that he ate regular meals and not too much sweet stuff, but it accounted for only about one week in four. The "away" food diary, which Rajiv had recorded with meticulous precision, was full of both sweet and savory junk-food snacks, grabbed on the run, often in airports, at all hours of the day, between work commitments.

Even savory processed foods usually contain a lot of sugar. Both food diaries showed two major, connected problems. He was drinking masses of milk, about 3 cups (0.86 L) a day, and avoiding eggs, fish and meat the latter a religious tradition and so non-negotiable.