> Health and Disease > Diabetes and Hypoglycemia

Over 10 million people in North America have been diagnosed with diabetes and another eight million don’t know they have it yet. That means that one out of 20 North Americans is afflicted with the disease. The total number of cases will double within the next 20 years, meaning the average person today has a one-in-five chance of developing diabetes. The cause, prevention, management and possible cure of the disease has been a topic of much debate between the traditional medical community and practitioners of alternative remedies.

Diabetes is a degenerative disease in which the body is unable to utilize sugar in the normal manner. In a non-diabetic person, the pancreas produces insulin which is used to bring blood sugar to the body’s cells for energy.

Conventional medicine states that diabetes is caused by the failure of the pancreas to make insulin–a hormone normally produced by islet cells (a small group of cells that is structurally distinct from the cells surrounding it). Glucose cannot enter body cells where it must be converted into energy without insulin.

Present researchers do not direct their efforts towards the nutritional and dietary aspects of diabetes. Currently, all conventional research has been directed towards:

• transplanting islet cells to reverse diabetes


• improving isolation and purification of islet cells from donor organs


• preserving and storing islet cells


• overcoming immunological barriers to prevent rejection of islet cell destrution


• understanding sophisticated cell-to-cell communication

The Dietary Dilemma

Diabetes is actually caused by a stored excess of animal protein in different systems of the body and can create a problem with the cells’ insulin receptors. The insulin is unable to penetrate the membrane of the cell and the excess glucose is stored in the blood stream, raising blood sugar levels.

Meat, seafood, poultry and the reduction or elimination of complex carbohydrates has been part of conventional diet recommendations for diabetics until not long ago. These recommendations do more harm than good. Patients find it harder to control the disease when they replace carbohydrates with meat, seafood and poultry.

Diabetics must not eat meat, seafood or poultry. They need to eat undegenerated complex carbohydrates like raw plant food. You will cure diabetes by getting rid of excessively stored animal protein on the membranes of your body’s cells. Eat only raw vegetables, fruits and grains until your blood sugar level is normal.

Types I and II

Let’s further explore the cause and cure of two major diabetic types:

Type I–This is often referred to as insulin-dependent diabetes. The pancreas does not produce enough insulin and it must be injected daily. This type of diabetes often afflicts children and may sometimes be referred to as "juvenile diabetes" although it can occur at any age.

Diabetes in young people is either caused by metabolic imbalances in the bodies of the parents before conception or by medication administered at a young age, particularly antibiotics. Metabolic imbalances can be caused by processed foods like fruit juices, by a fast drive to high altitudes resulting in a lack of oxygen, stress, exhaustion, poisons in foods, alcohol, nicotine and mercury amalgam fillings in teeth.

Antibiotics are mostly used to suppress fever. Their frequent use can lead to a degeneration of the pancreas, which can cause diabetes. Medical histories of young people indicate that leukemia can also be a "side effect" of antibiotics.

However, a switch to raw vegetables, fruits and grains can soon reduce insulin requirements to one-half or even one-quarter of previously required quantities. Young bodies have a good chance of regenerating their pancreas completely within one year, after all other causes that may have contributed to the degeneration of the pancreas have been removed.

Type II–This form is often called non-insulin-dependent diabetes and is usually developed in mid- or later life, although it can occur in younger individuals too. It’s also called "adult onset." The so-called non-insulin dependent diabetes requires insulin injections in many cases.

Type II diabetes is predominantly caused by too much excess animal protein stored on the membranes of body cells. Accordingly, the most urgently needed treatment is to get rid of this stored excess protein and to re-establish a healthy metabolism. This can be done by adhering to a 100 percent raw plant food diet that includes freshly ground raw grains.

In many cases of type II diabetes, the quantity of insulin produced is reduced because of an exhaustion of the pancreas. The consumption of too much deficient food for too many years forces the pancreas to frequently produce more insulin than a proper diet would have required. The cure is easy, fast and cheap. Unprocessed food costs much less than processed food.

Excerpted with permission from Food for Humans by Patrick Wright (IRFD Publications, San Rafael, CA, 1997).

Source: alive #218, December 2000