According to the National Institutes of Health, about 26 million people (more than 8 percent of the population) in the United States had type 2 diabetes in 2011. That’s an increase of 9 percent from 2007.
Type 2 diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, non-traumatic limb amputation, and chronic kidney disease in the United States. It is also a major cause of heart disease. Every year, close to a quarter of a million people in the United States will die because of complications from type 2 diabetes. That’s nearly one person every two minutes. To put it another way, by the time you have read to the bottom of this page, someone’s son, father, daughter, or mother will have died due to conditions associated with diabetes. And the number of diabetes deaths is growing. One recent study estimates that by 2050, the number of people with type 2 diabetes will more than triple. Fifty percent of all Americans will have developed type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, unless we each take the necessary steps to prevent this disease. If we don’t act, the cost to our economy, to our nation, and to our families, will be catastrophic.
Type 2 diabetes not only impacts the person who has it, but his or her entire family as well. Chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease put a strain on our nation’s already overtaxed healthcare budget. They account for 60 to 70 percent of all healthcare costs, and almost 70 percent of the country’s deaths each year. We need to change this trend.
What Caused the Diabetes Epidemic?
Why is a disease which can be readily prevented becoming an epidemic on a global scale? Why is it getting worse each year, not better? Given all the attention and resources we pour into healthcare—more than any other industrialized nation on earth—why is this happening?
The answer is simple. Just look around and you’ll see that Americans are getting bigger. Our consumer culture represents our growing appetites. Cars and trucks are bigger, theater seats are bigger, and houses are bigger. Our expanding diet is a reflection of this growing trend of “bigger is better.” Enlarging portions of refined foods have robbed us of the ability to know when we’re full.
We have gotten into the habit of satisfying our palette and not controlling our appetite. We want our foods to not only be filling, but also delicious, easy, and convenient. Companies have responded by supplying us with unhealthy foods that create a craving in us for more and more. It’s nearly impossible to go anywhere without being tempted by foods and drinks that are loaded with sugar, fat, corn syrup, refined oils, and flavorings that are designed to make us overeat. Overprocessed, high-sugar, and high-fat foods and beverages are directly related to the type 2 diabetes epidemic. Few of us are able to tell the difference between a healthy meal and an unhealthy one. Unlike with cigarettes and alcohol, there is no fine print on our foods to warn us that, “eating this might increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a dangerous, life-altering, and life-threatening disease.”
While our portion sizes have grown and our diet has become unhealthier, we’ve slowed down. In fact, at no other time in human history have we been so inactive. Compared with just a few generations ago, when most of our relatives worked on a farm or were engaged in manual labor, most of us have become sedentary. Today, we get around in motorized vehicles of one sort or another—escalators, elevators, cars, trucks, people movers, mowers, three-wheelers, boats—all of them designed to keep us from moving. We sit at our desk to work, and then go home to our couch and watch TV.
Most nutritionists, doctors, and healthcare providers believe this combination of larger portions of unhealthy foods, and reduced activity is responsible for the epidemic of type 2 diabetes, as well as heart disease and many other chronic diseases. We’re also putting our children at risk. Type 2 diabetes once was called adult onset diabetes but now it is so common in children that we have had to change the name.
It’s no wonder that, in the time it’s taken you to read this far, one American has died from diabetes or its complications. And still more Americans will die. Children age five are now developing type 2 diabetes and will spend their whole lives suffering from the symptoms of diabetes and the side effects of the drugs used to treat it.
The Key to Reversing Diabetes
Over 26 million Americans have diabetes, and they are living without much hope of conquering their disease. But here is the good news: in most cases, type 2 diabetes is completely preventable. You read that correctly. By far, the majority of type 2 diabetic cases—close to 95 percent—can be prevented. Much of type 2 diabetes can be treated effectively with diet alone. Many type 2 diabetics can reduce or eliminate the medications they take to treat elevated blood sugars.
How is that possible?
How can a disease that is destroying our quality of life and killing so many people—a disease that is considered to be an epidemic—be preventable and often early in the disease reversible?
And yet it’s true, diabetes type 2 can be prevented and often treated with diet alone. What you need to do is change your behavior. That’s right, behavior—not more drugs. Understanding the disease and attacking the core problem is more effective than treating symptoms with higher and higher doses of medications.
You have this program in hand because either you or someone you love has diabetes, and you want to do more than just manage it. You may already be living with some of the problems that diabetes causes, such as blindness, cataracts, kidney failure, heart disease, or nerve damage, which makes it imperative that you get started now. Even late in the disease this program can provide help. It can, if followed closely, help to slow or stop diabetic complications and can help bring your sugars under control.
You can treat your diabetes simply and naturally. We’re about to show you how. As you begin this program if you already have diabetes and are on medication it is IMPERATIVE to stay in close contact with your physician as you will likely need your medications reduced, sometimes quite rapidly, to avoid medication side effects and low blood sugars.