Bone broth or similar foods are used during prolonged fasts to maintain electrolytes. Any snacks should be healthy fat and low carbohydrate, such as raw nuts. Water is encouraged to stay well hydrated, and coffee and tea are allowed during fasting periods. Twelve to 16-hour fasting periods are built into the daily routine, and adults eat one to two meals a day. All refined carbohydrates and sugars are avoided. This is a version of the Mediterranean diet. Healthy nutrition continues for life with good fats: nuts, seeds, fatty fruits and vegetables such as avocado, quality fish, and meat. The nutrition is healthy fats, low carbohydrates, and intermittent fasting. The approach to preventing and reversing diabetes described in The Diabetes Code is straightforward.

Fasting is a key part of this disease reversal process. Overcome insulin resistance, and the blood sugar returns to normal and the type 2 diabetes is reversed. Insulin resistance results in the high blood sugar of type 2 diabetes. This also results in fatty liver early in the disease process. The repeated secretion of insulin that causes obesity next leads to insulin resistance as a protective mechanism for chronically high insulin levels. Doctors have known this for a long time, but Fung simplifies it for a better understanding of how insulin resistance occurs. In The Diabetes Code, Fung furthers this same argument to show that type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance.

Eating three meals a day is cultural, and contributes to the epidemic of overweight and obesity, especially with the increased intake of refined carbohydrates. Humans have spent most of their time on earth eating just one meal a day. He argues that nutrition for weight loss has been overly focused on what is eaten, and not sufficiently focused on how often we eat. Repeatedly eating carbohydrates causes chronically high insulin levels and the steady accumulation of fat.įung stresses the importance of fasting to lower insulin levels enough to begin using body fat for energy. Insulin is more importantly a fat storage hormone that blocks the burning of fat and causes excess sugar to be turned into fat through lipogenesis. 2 With all food consumption, especially carbohydrates, insulin is secreted to drive blood sugar into cells. 1 Fung is a nephrologist by training and runs the Intensive Dietary Management Program at the University of Toronto.įung formulated a new understanding of obesity by developing the argument that obesity is a hormonal illness of excess insulin. He is famous for postulating that with complex problems, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is usually correct. William of Ockham (1287-1347) was an English friar and philosopher. Jason Fung, MD uses Ockham’s razor to si mplify the management of type 2 diabetes.

Publication Information: Vancouver, Canada, Greystone Books, 2018, 296 pp., $22.95

The diabetes code dr fung