[MrsCogan]

Originally Posted by DRK

Actually, there are tons of testimonials of diabetics being able to reduce or eliminate supplemental insulin when following this sort of diet.

anecdote isn't data. Diabetics probably get better on this diet because it's low calorie and they lose weight--type II diabetics, that is. Type I diabetics would die pretty quickly on an all-fruit diet.

The key is the very low amount of fat. Just adding lots of fruit to a high fat diet will wreak havoc with the body, absolutely, because all those sugars get trapped in the bloodstream and the body keeps pumping more insulin to try to deal with them.

diabetes by definition is a lack of insulin. Your body can't make insulin and so your body can't process glucose, which means your food doesn't feed you. Your body tries to excrete the glucose which eventually destroys your kidneys.

But when you're not clogged up with fat, that sugar moves in & out of your bloodstream in a matter of minutes, with much less insulin needed. For a detailed explanation, see the 80-10-10 book (or other writings on low fat high fruit diets), but here's a very brief explanation: Fat coats everything. It will coat the sugar in the blood, the insulin, and the receptor sites which the insulin uses to move the sugar out of the blood. This messes up the process, enough so that much of the sugar just gets trapped in the blood. The body continues sensing the sugar in the blood and keeps pumping more insulin (often using adrenaline to push the pancreas to increase insulin production). Eventually, you end up with an excess of insulin which, when enough fat has cleared away, then removes too much sugar. The results of this process include the mood swings, energy level swings, etc., that you mention, and it is indeed very hard on the pancreas.

this description of human physiology has no foundation in reality. Glucose doesn't "get trapped in the body," your kidneys will excrete it, or try to. The idea of "fat coats everything" including "sugar" in the blood is laughable. Type I diabetics can't produce insulin and it doesn't really matter what they eat as long as they take insulin. If they eat a healthy diet they will be able to take less insulin. Type II diabetics produce some insulin and sometimes the diabetes can be controlled by diet, but it's not caused by eating too much sugar. It's caused by eating too much, period. And research is showing more and more that lack of exercise is an important factor.