The Longevity Diet

A summary of Chapter 8
…
Nutrition, FMD, and Diabetes Prevention and Treatment

Dear Rookie

A little known fact

A few years ago Launceston was the diabetes-related amputation capital of the world⁽¹⁾.

More people per capita in Launceston had parts of themselves amputated because of diabetes than anywhere else on the planet.

Why amputations?

Because diabetes is caused by a lack of insulin, made in the pancreas. Insulin helps glucose from food get into your cells to be used for energy.⁽²⁾

If you have diabetes and it is not treated (or you do not follow your doctor’s recommendations and prescription), then this is possible:

Over time, high glucose levels in your blood can cause damage to the lining of your small blood vessels, impeding your circulation.

When a part of your body is deprived of oxygen it dies. To avoid further sepsis and necrosis, it must be amputated. It might start at the end of a toe. Then the end of your foot. Then your whole foot.

That was the progress recently for someone I knew in Launceston. Next the leg was amputated. Then the lack of oxygen to his body and his vulnerability to infection led to his death. At least 20 years too early.

Why Launceston?

It’s a normal place in the developed world. So you’d expect 10% of the population to develop diabetes type 2. But on average Tasmania’s population is a few years older than in the rest of Australia. So chronic diseases show up earlier. I’m not sure about further demographics.

The ‘Black Death of the 21st Century’

A 2011 study⁽³⁾ forecast that over half a billion people world wide will have diabetes by 2030.

But unlike COVID, where you can protect against it with a vaccination, and where many people who are infected get better after a relatively short time, if you develop type 2 diabetes and do nothing about it then you are doomed to progressively deteriorating health and an early death.

It might not be your feet that lose blood flow and oxygen. It might be the blood vessels that supply oxygen to the back of your eye where light is converted into electrical signals. Your sight deteriorates. You go blind.

I know someone in this situation, too. It’s very hard for her.

This is not alarmist. It’s reality.

Don’t believe it can’t happen to you.

What causes diabetes?

By far the most common type of diabetes is type 2.

You are likely to develop it if you are overweight, obese, and physically inactive.

These conditions are driven by many factors that are difficult for the individual to control. For most of us they include:

• the ready availability and promotion of affordable food, laden with sugar and fat – hard to resist when we seem ‘genetically programmed’ for it
• the ease of transport, work and leisure without getting off our butts (we don’t even need to shiver or sweat to maintain an even temperature)
• multiple lifestyle factors, habits and personal history that compound difficulties with eating, sleeping and exercise
• other related conditions, such as hypertension, that are likely to occur at the same time and make matters worse

What can you do to avoid diabetes type 2?

(1) Check your BMI.

Your risk increases rapidly as your BMI rises above 21 (for females) or 22 (for males).

(2) Eat a healthy diet.

See the summary of Valter Longo's recommendation in my email about chapter 4 of The Longevity Diet.

It boils down to:

• eat within twelve hours or fewer per day
• be nourished: eat more, not less, but better
• eat two meals a day plus a snack

(3) Sleep well and enough (about eight hours a night).

Valter Longo does not mention this in this chapter. But, for general health, good sleep is at least as important as good eating and good exercise – perhaps even more important.

(4) Exercise well

(5) Regularly undertake the fasting mimicking diet

This is where it’s really useful to read The Longevity Diet. In this chapter about diabetes you’ll learn about ProLon and:

• metabolic reprogramming to treat diabetes
• pancreatic regeneration and reversal of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in mice
• a cautionary tale with two further case studies

If you’re prediabetic or similar, it doesn't come much more interesting than this.

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So there’s plenty you can do right now to reduce your risk of developing diabetes. Or getting back from the brink if you are already prediabetic.

But first, a…

WARNING

Do not try to apply any type of fasting mimicking diet to treat either type 1 or type 2 diabetes alone or even with the help of a doctor. The combination of the FMD and insulin but also other drugs could cause severe problems and even death. Although the use of the FMD to treat either type 1 or 2 diabetes is promising, it must be first tested and proven effective in TGA-approved clinical trials which would probably require hospitalisation during the treatment.

If you are not sure of your status then check with your doctor.

Then, if you get the OK to undergo the ProLon fasting mimicking diet:

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• Permanently follow the diet, sleep and exercise recommendations.
• Fast for five days. The safe and easier way – with ProLon.
• Repeat the fast two or three times a year.

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Do something today to stop diabetes type 2 encroaching on your life.

Step back from the brink.

And remember this is always more complicated than I can express in a letter. Read Valter Longo’s book for a broader context. Or drop me a line if you want specific information.

Yours in good health.

Peter Jerrim
LifeX Australia

References, quotes and attributions

1. personal communication from a senior health department official, 2012
2. On page 139 of The Longevity Diet, Valter Longo explains this super clearly: ‘You can think of insulin as the key to unlock the gate that lets glucose enter the cells, but also the key that closes the door that allows glucose to be released by the liver. In type 2 diabetic patients, that key isn’t working properly, the gate doesn’t open completely, and glucose cannot enter cells at the normal rate.’
3. Egger G. Response to Matthews and Matthews. Type 2 diabetes as an ‘infectious’ disease: is this the ‘Black Death’ of the 21st century. Diabet Med. 2011 May;28(5):622.
4. photos of Launceston by Zachary Ferguson and Nico Smit courtesy Unsplash