Dr. Dean Ornish explains why lifestyle changes work even better than medications for treating pre-diabetes.
Video Transcript
Diabetes, typically what’s called type-2 diabetes, has become epidemic, not only in this culture but in most cultures around the world because they’re starting to eat like us and live like us and, all too often, die like us. And yet it’s completely preventable, and even reversible, for the vast majority of people.
One of the reasons why lifestyle changes often work even better than drugs is that there are minute-to-minute changes in how much blood sugar your body needs to produce . . . if you just take a medication once or twice or even 3 or 4 times a day, it doesn’t give you that same fine-tuning that your own pancreas can do.
Now oftentimes people are put on diabetes medications and they’re told: You have to take these forever. But that’s because you’re not changing the underlying cause. And the unifying principle of the Spectrum approach is that when we can treat the underlying cause of the problem, then your body often can begin to heal itself–and much more quickly than we once thought possible.
So if you have type-2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, begin by making changes along the Spectrum guidelines. The more changes you make and the bigger they are, the more likely you are to be able to reduce or under your doctor’s care, to be able to get off these medications altogether. And if you do, you’ll not only feel better, but you’ll be significantly reducing the complications of eye, nerve, kidney damage, heart disease, impotence, and other complications of diabetes.
