Hi everyone, I was wondering what experience the T1D community here at JDRF has with any kind of recovery or healing from a change in diet. I am reading and listening to Barbara Oneill who has seen first hand experience towards recovery of the disease with changes in the types of food eaten. There are claims of some insulin resistance as well as some focus on the Glycemic Index in helping to give the pancreas a break and that some healing can and has some recordable instances taken place.
We are brand new to this but have hope for healing despite what many of the people in health state. Does anyone have some additional experience with some of these approaches?
Type 1 autoimmune diabetes cannot be cured by anything or anyone as of this moment in time. If you don’t use insulin or attempt a starvation diet (the actual original medical plan for T1 diagnosis) then you will die.
I’m sorry if this is a shock or surprise. There are many false claims by both people and organizations claiming otherwise that hope you will pay their fee.
Please stay in close contact with actual medical doctors for any kind of change in the use of insulin.
Insulin is a natural and crucial hormone for almost all cells in the body to absorb glucose, which is part of normal metabolism. You can reduce the need for insulin by eating very low carbohydrates, but this will be detrimental if, for example, a young person needs to grow normally while maintaining energy levels for fun and sports. Insulin cannot be totally eliminated in people with type 1 or death will occur.
Thank you for the somber response. I suspect it to be the belief and knowledge of many. I realize all of what you have said, I am looking for people who have experienced improvements in their insulin requirements after adjusting diet to lower glycemic index foods as well as less carbohydrates. I am not just talking about having to take less insulin because sugars are less in their food. I am talking about some kind of a reaction from their pancreas despite what conventional medical practices are teaching.
@aauruski Aaron, I doubly endorse what @Joe wrote and advised.
At present, there is not any cure for autoimmune diabetes; people have been searching for a cure for at least 3.500 years and none yet has been found.
Scientists are diligently working on finding a cure and JDRF is currently, and has since its founding, funding and sponsoring projects seeking that cure; yet, we have not yet found a way to tell our auto-immune system to stop attacking and destroying the cells that produce insulin.
Is this the woman you’re talking about: Health retreat run by banned wellness coach Barbara O'Neill under investigation | Health | The Guardian? If so, then firstly I’d like to point out that (from what I’ve seen) when she talks about diabetes in her lectures she’s talking about type 2 diabetes, not type 1 diabetes. They’re two completely different diseases with different treatments. Kind of like how cancers aren’t all the same even though they have similar names. Secondly, I would call your attention to the following excerpt: “The commission’s investigation found O’Neill never held any membership with any accredited professional health organisation and had failed to obtain any relevant health-related degrees or diplomas. She has been permanently barred from providing any health services either voluntarily or in a paid capacity, including giving lectures.”
There are a lot of people in this community who find management of their blood sugars easier when they follow a specific diet (low carb or keto, for example), but there’s no healing or recovery for type 1 diabetics from a change in diet. Type 2 diabetics might recover because their pancreases still produce some insulin. But in type 1 the pancreas does not produce any insulin at all. Talking about insulin resistance is moot at that point. No matter how you change your diet you will still need to use insulin therapy to treat yourself. Dieting might help your body use that insulin more efficiently once you have it in your system, but you’ll still need to get it from an outside source (vial and syringe, insulin pump…).
I’m not “in health” as you put it. I do happen to be a biologist, but I’m just someone who’s been living with the disease for 26 years. If I could have cured myself by changing my diet I would have a long, long time ago. If you’re looking to change your lifestyle I’d recommend you find a licensed nutritionist or certified diabetes educator and work with them. Not this Barbara O’Neill.
When you share that you are new to all of this, are you helping someone with a new T1 diabetes diagnosis? Are they in the “Honeymoon” phase, If yes, there is actually a hybrid of nutritional and medicine hope. Because the body is still producing some insulin at that point, those insulin producing cells can be “preserved” via at least the lower carbohydrate Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet and medications like Symlin, etc., that take a lot of the glucose lowering load off of insulin, therefore not wearing out the cells that produce insulin. A while ago, I read of patients extending their Honeymoon phase for years, instead of its normal few months of duration. And, really, the benefit there is that no matter how sophisticated and advanced the insulins and technology, nothing can compare to the body’s own ability to precisely moderate glucose lowering hormones and glycemic needs. It’s infinitely more gentle in its fluctuations, meaning less overall damage and harm. I haven’t looked into it for quite awhile, yet that seemed to be where a lot of research was being done with clinical trials to enroll in…to minimize the progression of the destruction of the beta cells in newly diagnosed T1. That is always the objective of T2 management. I don’t much care about either, or a vaccine, yet my tuckered nearly 30 years of managing my T1 is selfish that way. Good luck. And, remain open and hopeful.