Worldwide, type 2 diabetes (not to be confused with adult-onset type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder) is a full-blown epidemic. The number of people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.1 In 2017, the American diabetes maintenance industry earned $237 billion.2
Type 2 diabetes, if left untreated, is a life-threatening situation. And yet, it is curable. By "curable," I mean it can be eliminated in such a way that the disease will not return, and all treatments for it can be discontinued.
Type 2: The Fundamentals
Type 2 diabetes, a Western medical term also known as "hyperglycemia," is essentially an allergy to insulin, the hormone produced by the pancreas whose duty is to lead nutrition into the body's cells. By extension, this translates as an allergy to food – all food. There are no "healthy foods" for a person with type 2 diabetes, only less harmful foods, and especially less harmful amounts of food.
The body's cells are choking, suffocating on excessive nutrition in the form of "glycogen," a fancy word for blood sugar, which the liver has converted from dietary fats, proteins and carbohydrates. This rejection of insulin-driven nutrition eventually causes cellular starvation and death, and can happen to any tissue or organ in the body.
The Problem With the Western Medical Approach
Traditional Western medicine prescribes increasing amounts of externally applied insulin, an expensive and highly profitable substance, consistent with the belief that "more is better." Three problems are associated with this disastrous approach:
A Chinese Medicine Analysis
In terms of Eight Principles, the foundation of Chinese medicine, type 2 diabetes is classified as yin excess. A person diagnosed with type 2 diabetes always has a damp spleen. It's no coincidence that excess body fat, pathognomonic for spleen damp, is statistically joined at the hip with type 2 diabetes.
Almost 90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese.3 The rise of type 2 diabetes parallels the rise of obesity,4 which began in the late 1970s.
A damp spleen is the result of consistent overeating. Consuming food past one's comfort level was a survival strategy in all times past; a way of storing nutrition (enlarged fat cells, impacted fecal matter, tumors and other growths, and excess serum cholesterol) for a harsh winter, when food would be difficult to find.
For millions of years, the damp spleen helped the human race survive until spring, when food was abundant once again. Hyperglycemia was never a factor, since sleeping, resting and fasting required very small, gradual releases of insulin.
People with type 2 diabetes aren't prone to feel hunger, an empty feeling in the stomach area that prepares and motivates humans and animals to go to work to secure food in the wilderness. The stronger the hunger, the drier the spleen and the stronger the spleen qi. But in a barren, winter landscape, hunger would have been a distinct evolutionary disadvantage.
Now appetite – the desire for food – yes, diabetics have plenty of that. The emotional connection with food and bad advice from others is why they keep eating, even though their bodies would prefer to use stored nutrition, and avoid insulin and food altogether.
The "Cure" in Four Steps
How does one move nutrition into the body without insulin? That is the question. The simple answer is exercise. The physical action of muscles contracting and extending acts like a pump, forcing blood sugar into the cells, completely bypassing the pancreas and insulin.
A simple test will prove this point to diabetics. Before taking their prescribed insulin:
Most type 2 diabetic patients are so captured by their doom-and-gloom doctors, so convinced that dispensing with insulin will kill them, that they need visual proof to the contrary. Testing before and after exercise is the evidence that will eventually give them the confidence to break with the diabetes maintenance industry.
A habit of daily exercise is a critical component of the cure. If this becomes a difficulty at first, then exercising with a partner or the hiring of a trainer might be necessary.
The second step is to start undereating; that is to say, to eat fewer calories (a scientific measurement of guqi) than are burned. The easiest way to do that, without sacrificing delicious food, is OMAD (one meal a day). For details on this process, see my article in the January 2023 issue of AT, "OMAD and the Shedding of Excess Yin."5
OMAD can be continued until hunger is felt, a healthy state of leanness is attained, and the damp spleen is eliminated.
The third component of the cure is body trust. Fatigue is a message that indicates a need to rest or sleep, not to eat. Uncomfortable emotions must be honored, not suppressed with food. Addiction to alcohol, at 7 calories per gram, requires group or individual counseling.
A distant fourth would be the use of Chinese herbs from the category "food stagnation." Bo Jen Mi tea, for example, will help the damp spleen digest stored nutrition, but will not substitute for exercise, undereating and body trust.
In short, the best advice for your patients is: Eat less, move more.
References
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The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM) has announced it is closing after 41 years. Pending accreditor approval, OCOM will cease offering classes after September (fourth-year OCOM students graduate Aug. 26). All current / incoming OCOM students have the option of continuing their education at the National University of Natural Medicine or Five Branches University, or transferring to another school altogether.
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