In the study, published October 9, 2018, in the journal BMJ Case Reports, intermittent fasting, in which eating is limited during certain times of the day or week, reportedly helped three middle-aged men with type 2 diabetes lose weight, get off their insulin, and reduce or get off their oral medication.

“Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.” – Hippocrates

A recent study published in the journal cell in 2017 shows how a fasting diet can trigger the pancreas to regenerate itself, which works to control blood sugar levels and reverse symptoms of diabetes.

Mark Mattson, one of the foremost researchers of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying multiple neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, has shown through his work that fasting can have a tremendous effect on the brain, and could prevent or even reverse the symptoms of multiple neurodegenerative disorders. You can watch a great TEDx talk he gave on the topic here.

The problem is we don’t treat diabetes as a dietary problem; we treat it with a lot of drugs, and that never addresses the root problem of the diabetes. Since type 2 diabetes is merely excessive glucose in the body, burning it off will reverse the disease. Fasting is the simplest and fastest method to force your body to burn sugar for energy. Glucose in the blood is the most easily accessible source of energy for the body. Fasting is merely the flip side of eating — if you are not eating you are fasting. When you eat, your body stores food energy. When you fast, your body burns food energy. If you simply lengthen out your periods of fasting, you can burn off the stored sugar. The answer for Type 2 diabetes is to stop feeding your body sugar and burn off the sugar already in your cells, and the most effective way to do this is fasting, which less than inexpensive — it’s free.

While it may sound severe, fasting has been practiced for at least 2000 years. It is the oldest dietary therapy known. Literally millions of people throughout human history have fasted without problems.