This week I’d like to talk about the concept of diet-controlled diabetes. Sometimes, when a patient’s most recent bloodwork demonstrates a mild elevation in their blood sugars, their doctor offers them an opportunity to try to improve their sugars without medication. If the patient is able to bring their blood sugars into the normal range through changes in the way they eat, perhaps along with increasing their activity levels to some extent, the doctor diagnoses this patient with what they term “diet-controlled diabetes.” 

That’s what I want to talk about. If the standard American diet, consisting primarily of ultra-processed items as it does, causes diabetes — which we know it does — and if substituting whole foods like vegetables, beans, fruits, grains, eggs, and fish for those highly processed items protects blood sugars and keeps them in the normal range — which you know they do — then that would mean that a great many of us with normal blood sugars have diet-controlled diabetes. When doctors see that your blood sugars are above the normal range, what they are actually saying is not that you have diabetes, but that your body can no longer keep your blood sugars in the normal range in the setting of the standard American ultra processed diet. What does that mean? It means that if you want to keep your blood sugars in the normal range, you’re going to have to help your metabolism, because it can’t do it by itself anymore. 

That may be a bitter pill for you to swallow, but much less so than the devastating consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.

In some ways you might consider that everyone with normal blood sugars is diet-controlled. That’s because choosing mostly whole, unprocessed or minimally processed foods significantly decreases the risk of raising blood sugars above the normal range. To do this, you’ll want to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, legumes (beans); eat nutritious fats like nuts and olive oil instead of manufactured oils that were invented in the 20th century; choose whole grains in place of stripped grains; and significantly reduce the amount of highly processed food in your diet. You can’t decrease your risk to zero, but you can certainly play the odds in your favor.

Here, on the other hand, are factors that markedly increase your likelihood of becoming diabetic: 1) drinking soda (corn syrup is a major risk factor, but diet soda also increases the risk); 2) eating many highly-advertised breakfast cereals, white-bread sandwiches for lunch, and pasta for dinner; 3) frequently eating snacks from standard vending machines; 4) regularly eating doughnuts; 5) eating processed lunch meats and fast food; 6) eating few if any fruits and vegetables; 7) racing from activity to activity without a break; and 9) refraining from making almost any opportunities to move. Sounds like the American way of life. So it’s no wonder that we have a diabetes and obesity epidemic. And it explains why changing the diet of the average American improves their blood sugars.

Besides eating well, there are two other issues worth mentioning in a conversation about blood sugars. To stay off the road to diabetes, it is valuable to make time to quiet your mind, to keep sleep a priority, and to find a way to manage stress in a productive way. Then make a plan to increase your opportunities to move. You don’t have to train for the Olympics. If you haven’t walked in years, then start with a 10-minute walk three times a week. Or 5 minutes daily if you find it easier to do every day. If you’d rather do stretching, then start with that. Just start low, and go slow.