The Diabetes Lie: “Type 2 Diabetes Is Best Treated with Insulin”
Rethinking Insulin Use for Type 2 Diabetes
Dr. Robert Lufkin
2024
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Diabetes is an abnormality of insulin that results in elevated levels of blood sugar or glucose.
In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas, the organ that makes insulin, is damaged, so insulin levels are abnormally low. This used to be the most common type of diabetes but has since been overtaken by another type of diabetes, type 2, which now represents over 90 percent of cases.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by carbohydrates in the diet, which stimulates insulin. Insulin resistance occurs when there are chronic high levels of insulin, which results in cells being less sensitive to a given dose of insulin. This requires even higher levels of insulin, which can make the resistance worse—a vicious circle. According to the CDC, one in three adult Americans is either diabetic or prediabetic, and 80 percent of them don’t know it. Type 2 diabetes now comprises at least 90 percent of diabetes cases. This disease results in abnormally high levels of blood sugar and insulin, which in turn damages the body. This results in blindness, renal failure, and increased rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.
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We also happen to be in the beginning of the worst epidemic of diabetes that the world has ever known. Ten percent of American adults have type 2 diabetes, and as I said before, about 38 percent have prediabetes. That means for the first time in history, 48 percent or nearly half the population has the same metabolic disease!
Remember the effect of the dietary recommendations on carbohydrate consumption and the resulting increase in insulin levels and obesity over the last decades? Well, those factors also drive the diabetes epidemic, although it takes a bit longer to get diabetes from chronic elevated insulin and the resulting insulin resistance.
As we will see, common metabolic dysfunction, including insulin resistance, is the root cause for obesity and diabetes, as well as most chronic conditions that we all face. The diabetes lie declares that the best way to treat type 2 diabetes is with insulin. Giving insulin will help control the immediate effects of too much glucose in the blood by telling our cells to remove that blood glucose and store it as fat. But it will also raise the body’s overall insulin levels, which will worsen insulin resistance, the underlying cause of type 2 diabetes. Also, elevated insulin levels drive other chronic diseases.
Diabetes in the US population from 1958 to 2015
Lies I Taught in Medical School
If type 2 diabetes and chronic insulin elevation are caused by a diet of too much insulin-producing refined carbohydrates and sugars, would simply switching to a low-carbohydrate diet reverse type 2 diabetes?
The man in these photos was obese and had type 2 diabetes (left). His hemoglobin A1C test, which measures the average level of blood sugar over two to three months, was abnormally high at 9.6 percent. (We’ll talk more about glycation later.) According to standard medical recommendations, he would be started on injected insulin soon. Instead, he decided to try intermittent fasting and removed refined carbohydrates and sugars to make his diet ketogenic. He lost about 100 pounds, and his A1C dropped to 5.2 percent, which is normal. His diabetes is in remission, and he is off all drugs. (Thanks to Chad @thebeardedtenor for sharing his story.)
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Knowing what we now know about the effect of insulin on weight, what do you think would have happened to this man if he had followed the standard medical treatment for his type 2 diabetes and started injecting insulin?
Our healthcare system is sadly much more optimized to deliver prescriptions for insulin and other drugs for managing type 2 diabetes than giving instructions on how to reverse it by changing our nutrition to avoid the causes. To be fair, many people would rather take a pill or a shot instead of changing their lifestyles. But most people don’t know how powerful and effective lifestyle choices can be. Plus, there is some evidence to show that merely improving glucose control with drugs such as insulin or pills might not prevent some of the long-term complications these patients all face. (We’ll delve into those in the other chapters.)
Lies I Taught in Medical School
A man photographed before and after removing refined carbohydrates from his diet and starting intermittent fasting. Photos courtesy of @thebeardedtenor.
There also are financial incentives. In 2013, sales of insulin and other diabetes drugs reached $23 billion, according to data from IMS Health, a drug market research firm. That was more than the combined revenue of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association. Even the American Diabetes Association (ADA), which recommends the use of insulin and other drugs rather than primarily restricting dietary carbohydrates, received over $1 million from each one of five of its top pharmaceutical company sponsors in 2022.
The ADA routinely gives advice like this, from 2008: “Sucrose-containing foods [foods containing sugar] can be substituted for other carbohydrates in the meal plan or, if added to the meal plan, covered with insulin or other glucose-lowering medications.”
In Lies I Taught in Medical School, Dr. Robert Lufkin critically examines misconceptions in conventional medicine, particularly around nutrition, metabolism, and chronic diseases. Through personal experience and research, he explores how widely accepted medical advice may be contributing to poor health outcomes and offers a fresh perspective on understanding and managing these conditions.
