Success Stories – Cured Type 1 Diabetics

Success Stories – Cured Type 1 Diabetics

My first couple posts outlined my story as a type 1 diabetic (“T1D”) and my daily diet that has helped me stay off of medication for over two years.  A natural progression for my next blog would be to list the key resources that I used to educate myself on natural alternatives to fight this disease and illustrate multiple cases of cured T1Ds.

Over the course of the past two years I have read many books and watched a number of great documentaries.  For this post, I’m going to focus on the two key resources that essentially changed my life and provided the education and inspiration necessary for me to manage this disease medication free.

Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days

Link to the Documentary

This documentary was the first major step in understanding how to manage Type 1 diabetes with no medication.  This film is truly inspiring for not only diabetics throughout the world, but for anyone looking to fight diseases naturally.

The film starts off with all sorts of fun facts like 1) the cases of Type 2 diabetes has tripled in the past 10 years; 2) the US is one of the sickest countries in the world; and 3) we currently have the most overweight population in the history of the human race.

The genesis of the documentary was to follow 6 Americans with diabetes through a 30 day journey to “cure” their disease through purely a raw natural food diet.  Like most diabetics, all 6 subjects prior to the documentary had been advised by their doctors to pump themselves full of medication with zero guidance on how a raw plant-based diet could essentially cure their disease. This was exactly the rhetoric I heard from my doctors when I first was diagnosed, as well.

All Type 2 Diabetics Cured

The subjects all attended a clinic at the Tree of Life Center in Patagonia, Arizona which is led by Dr. Gabriel Cousins. Of the 6 diabetics in the film, 4 or them were Type 2 diabetics (“T2D”) and 2 were T1Ds.  The T2Ds were hard core diabetics, meaning they all were heavily medicated and in poor health. The one T2D was on 17 different pills and insulin.  After 1 week, each of the T2D were 100% off of medication with fasting blood sugars approaching normal ranges.

I don’t want to dwell on the T2Ds here because my primary purpose is to help T1Ds, however, this pretty much shows that even the worst cases of T2D can be completely reversed within a week once following this type of diet.  I’m no doctor, but from my understanding, every single T2D out there can be cured, or at least stop medication, if you just follow the general guidelines of this documentary.

Type 1 Diabetic Success Story #1 (drastic insulin reduction)

Now for the T1Ds at the clinic…the one T1D had the disease since he was about 10 years old. He came into the clinic very skeptical about a “cure” or the potential of living insulin free, even though the doctors told him of several cases of “curing” T1Ds. After the 30 day program, this individual was able to reduce his daily insulin units from 70 to 5. Since I’ve never been on insulin, I really don’t understand doses/units but this represents a 93% decrease in required insulin.

Type 1 Diabetic Success Story #2 (cured)

The second T1D was the more interesting subject. Not to play spoiler, but this person was thought to be a T2D at the beginning of the film but it was proven at the end he was actually a T1D. His name is Kirt Tyson and he was diagnosed with the disease in his early 20s. When he was diagnosed he had a fasting blood sugar of 1,200 (normal is < 100), and had been on insulin ever since.

Within one week at the clinic, Kirt was off of medication and his fasting blood sugar was 73. One could argue that he was cured of his disease. Dr. Cousens mentioned that Kirt has been medication free for over 10 years now.

In conclusion, the transformation of each person was truly remarkable following the retreat. Each person felt much healthier, lost significant excess weight, and got their life back on track. It wasn’t easy though, and the documentary shows the battle that people have adjusting to this raw vegan diet. However, 5 of the 6 individuals were completely euphoric following the retreat and were overly thankful at how this changed their lives.

Profound Impacts on All Disease

One final point worth mentioning is that this can positively affect each and everyone one of us. The Standard American Diet (“SAD”) promotes disease in all of us, not just diabetics. The one doctor in the film stated that he believes 50% of all diseases could be completely eliminated if the population focused on a raw plant-based diet. 

Whether you suffer from illnesses like diabetes or cancer or other issues like acne, stomach problems, asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease or fatigue…I can assure you that implementing a raw plant based lifestyle can help counteract these problems. There are examples of multiple people that I know who have cured or significantly alleviated their problems through a healthier diet.

I certainly don’t expect everyone to become a raw vegan foodist. However, just take baby steps like eating a salad everyday for lunch made up of healthy vegetables. I promise you that you will feel like a million bucks after a 2-3 weeks on the diet. Don’t underestimate the power of food!

The 2nd Resource: Dr. Gabriel Cousens

Tree of Life Center (website)

There is a Cure for Diabetes (book)

After I viewed the documentary discussed above, I was completely floored that a T1D was able to remove himself from insulin and achieve a fasting blood sugar of 73. If you talk to any doctor, this just isn’t supposed to happen. I was very eager to learn more, so I started researching Dr. Gabriel Cousens who runs the Tree of Life clinic.

More Diabetics Seek to Get Cured

After a little digging, I discovered that Dr. Cousens published a book in 2012 that summarized his interactions with another 120 diabetics, both T1 and T2 since the release of the documentary. Apparently, once the Simply Raw documentary came out, many other diabetics throughout the country were interested in attending the Tree of Life retreat to try and cure their diabetes.

More Type 1 Diabetics Cured

Of the additional T1Ds that Dr. Cousens treated, approximately 31.4% were off all insulin in three weeks and approximately 21% were off all insulin with a fasting blood sugar less than 100 (cured). Although 69% of the T1Ds treated at the clinic were not able to come off of insulin, they had a 70% average drop in their insulin requirements. Not bad…

Unfortunately the book didn’t provide exact numbers of how many T1Ds were treated, but a 30% success rate of removing T1D patients from medication in three weeks is astounding. Much better than the 0% that your typical doctor / endocrinologist will tell you!

After reading this, I’m guessing the question that most people have is how is this possible? Aren’t T1Ds supposed to have an autoimmune disease that destroys their beta cells and prohibits the creation of insulin? Well, I’m living proof that my beta cells are not all destroyed, contrary to popular belief.

Without getting too technical, Dr. Cousens believes that his diet was effective because 1) it reduced inflammation in a T1Ds body which allowed more beta cells to survive and produce insulin; 2) the live foods stimulated beta cell production; and 3) the diet significantly reduces the amount of insulin needed to produce normal fasting blood sugars.

Conclusion

For any of you skeptics, hopefully after reading this blog you can see there is concrete scientific research to support my practices. There is a whole community of other T1Ds out there doing the exact same thing as me, some even better!

Unfortunately, this diet is not full-proof and a majority of T1Ds will not be able to completely remove themselves from medication. But, I feel like every T1D out there deserves to be educated on this (you hear that American Diabetes Association?!?) so they at least have the option that nearly all doctors will not provide. Instead of hopelessly injecting yourself full of insulin everyday, you now know that you have a 30% chance of living medication free with this diet.

No one really knows why this diet works for some T1Ds. My personal opinion is that I believe all T1Ds, no matter when diagnosed, still have some functioning beta cells in their body. And the utilization of these remaining beta cells are able to be maximized by eating the diet discussed above.

Is This a Cure?

Is this a cure…? I don’t know. Is it true to say I’ve cured my disease because I can manage my blood sugars naturally by eating a diet of mostly vegetables, nuts and seeds? I certainly don’t think I technically cured my disease, but living medication free with the disease is damn near close.

What’s funny is that a more acceptable cure for society would be the introduction of drug that injects beta cells in one’s body (hypothetical example) to stimulate insulin production. This may eliminate the insulin need for many T1Ds, but they would still be eating the SAD. Now, is this a cure?

For having to live with a chronic disease that could slowly kill me, I’d say life really isn’t much different than it was before I became diabetic. Besides the change in diet and having to prick my finger each morning, there really isn’t much of a difference. Sometimes I don’t even like telling people I’m a T1D considering I’m not on medication and my A1c readings are technically classified as “non-diabetic”. 

I consider myself very fortunate that my body is still able to combat this disease medication free, and hopefully I have many more years of medication free life ahead of me.