Category: diabetes

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”—Zig Ziglar While I normally write my health articles on this site, I have been considering submitting articles to Medium publications to hone my writing and grow my audience. To get started, I just needed to publish my first article … Read more

“You can’t just take a vitamin and call it a day. If only health were that easy!” There used to be a compelling movement to encourage people to take B-vitamin supplements to manage homocysteine levels. When I first got diagnosed with diabetes in 2003, I was a fan of the book The Heart Revolution: The Extraordinary … Read more

The stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are defined by ranges of eGFR, a calculated number based on serum (blood) creatinine test results. Of course, the progression of CKD is continuous, but certain healthcare protocols are set based on the discrete stages of CKD, particularly at stage 4 when eGFR drops below 30.  In this … Read more

I started this blog six years ago to document my journey with Type 2 diabetes and fasting.  I took a bit of a break from the blogging since 2019 when my fasting doctor told me that despite doing “everything right” on that program, that my case of diabetes was likely too advanced to solve with … Read more

There has been a long-standing belief that consuming too much sugar was the cause of Type 2 diabetes and that treating diabetes was about controlling blood sugar.  Makes sense, right?  Well, it’s more complicated. Recent research has now provided evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction (previously covered on this blog) — involving fats, not glucose — may be … Read more

Fasting, diabetes, and innovations in health were just some of the topics I covered during my visit on the #PopHealth podcast titled “Personal and Organizational Well-being.” Here are the links to the podcast on the various platforms: SoundCloud Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher For those who haven’t listened to the #PopHealth show before, here … Read more

I’m now turning the corner of this second round at the Buchinger Wilhelmi fasting clinic here on Germany.  Now that I’ve been through 26 days of fasting this time around, “re-elementation” or “refeeding” is now the most important part.  The body has torn down the old, bad stuff through fasting.  I’m down over 20 pounds … Read more

I have known for quite some time that my system just wasn’t totally efficient, as I could eat an above average amount of food and not gain weight.  While many might envy having this problem, my unusually high metabolic rate was actually a bad sign. Many (pretty old!) studies have shown that Type 2 diabetics … Read more

A good friend just pointed me to an interesting article from the New York Times that came out Christmas Eve Day. It was based on a study out of Emory University in Atlanta that showed higher all-cause mortality associated with HDL levels above 80!  Below is a screen capture from the press conference where the … Read more

Catching Up I have not been good at keeping up with blogging.  After returning home from the fasting retreat, life got in the way!  I took my labs on November 19th (approximately 2 months after returning from the fasting clinic) and had intended on blogging right away.  However, moving into our new condo, my current … Read more

Do you have high LDL or high total cholesterol?  If you read my previous article about cheese, you may recall that these LDL or total cholesterol numbers alone are not reliable predictors of mortality from heart disease. An NBC News piece went further to cite American science writer Gary Taubes who reported that the LDL … Read more

Those of you who read this blog regularly already know that my answer would be “No!  Cheese is not the enemy!” At home, we’ve chosen largely an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, which basically means we eat eggs and cheese.  But isn’t cheese the enemy? Recent News This topic hit my social media feed recently, so I … Read more

Science continues to explain what we’ve known for a long time.  Mothers should eat in a healthy manner while pregnant! This past week, a study out of Germany was published explaining how for some, the root cause of Type 2 Diabetes might be in the expression of a single gene, and that this gene can … Read more

Another study was published this week associating plant-based diets with better outcomes for diabetics. The conclusion: Plant-based diets were associated with significant improvement in emotional well-being, physical well-being, depression, quality of life, general health, HbA1c levels, weight, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, compared with several diabetic associations’ official guidelines and other comparator diets. Plant-based … Read more

This past week, a new study was published in the November 1 issue of Cell further investigating a role of gut bacteria and amino acid metabolism and its role in impairing insulin sensitivity.  The particular branch-chained amino acid (BCAA) under study was histidine, and how the gut bacteria process it differently in diabetic versus non-diabetic individuals. In … Read more

We are on our way out of Buchinger Wilhelmi. Days 3 and 4, as well as Departure Day were a breeze as our food intake increased!  We got to enjoy our last activities here.  And, we got our final blood lab results back! Menus Refeeding Day 3 Day 3 menu (target 1,200 calories, but I … Read more

Mitochondrial medicine takes a different angle on the study and treatment of chronic diseases like Type II diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).  There is also some interesting work underway regarding mitochondria and the brain. You may remember from high school biology class that mitochondria are the subunits of our cells (with the notable exception … Read more

Fasting is like summiting a mountain. Summiting a mountain may sound like the daunting prospect, but the real danger lies in coming back down again, a new study shows. While hikers may feel they have conquered the hardest part after reaching the peak, in fact 75 per cent of falls occur on the road home. … Read more

I was surprised to attend a lecture just three weeks ago where a doctor told diabetics to exercise to lower their immediate blood glucose readings. After the lecture, I informed the doctor privately that this is not what I have actually observed over the last 15 years, and after some initial dispute, he expressed surprise. … Read more

“Every fool can fast, but only the wise man knows how to break a fast.” – George Bernard Shaw, Nobel-prize winning playwright Breaking our 22-day fast at Buchinger Wilhelmi To achieve the sustainable lifestyle benefits of fasting, the methodology here is as much about breaking the fast, as the prolonged fasting itself.  The purpose of … Read more

Writing this on Day 22 of “fasting.” (I put “fasting” in quotation marks because of the small number of calories we actually do get to consume. This is really more a “fasting mimicking diet” than true fasting.) Today we break the fast, so I had my final weigh in before we start chewing again! I … Read more

A psychotherapist on staff here at Buchinger-Wilhelmi told us that after about 3 weeks here, people start getting a bit eager to go home!  It’s funny that today marks our third week here, and we’ve already been ramping down our participation in a lot of the group activities! In addition to the cooking demonstrations, there … Read more

As we are progressing in our fast, the education here at Buchinger-Wilhelmi has shifted from “how to fast” to “how to eat” in preparation for returning home!  My wife and I now have been to 4 cooking demonstrations so far.  Those here at the end of their fasts get to partake in eating what was … Read more

Why do we care about our gut bacteria? It turns out that despite that our gut bacteria (our “microbiome”) is only about 1-2kg of weight in our colons, our gut bacteria has at least as many genes as we (the “hosts”) do! It turns out that our microbiome has a major influence on our immune … Read more

I have not had great historical success with doctors in the US in treating my diabetes.  My doctors have been too quick to insist on prescribing drugs that do not work over the long term for my situation, and they have not changed their views quickly enough to match as new data emerges.  Without exception, … Read more