A plants-based cure for diabetes – Longview Daily News

TOLEDO As a former Type II diabetic, Norm Baird admits that he used to abuse dairy. For years, the retired engineer enjoyed eggs and loved yogurt. He used to cut off little pieces of cheese to nibble on as he passed through his kitchen. His diet resembled a typical Americans: high in sugar, processed foods, meat and scant on vegetables.

But the silver-haired Toledo resident and cancer survivor no longer looks like a dairy abuser, having shed about 65 pounds and his diabetes diagnosis after adopting a plants-based diet in February 2016.

The 72-year-old is one of a small but growing number of people who have opted to go vegan or near-vegan as a first-line treatment for chronic weight- and diet-related illnesses such diabetes.

With more than two-thirds of American adults considered to be overweight or obese, diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the country. The number of people with Type II diabetes is expected to double by 2030, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Washington, Cowlitz County ranks 10th among the states 39 counties in prevalence of the disease. About 13 percent of Cowlitz residents are living with the condition, according to a chronic disease report by the Washington State Department of Health. Thats more than a third higher than the statewide average of 9 percent.

Things first started to change for Baird when he was diagnosed with cancer, and they snowballed from there.

As you get older it feels like doctors have two columns of health conditions, Baird said. Every year that passes it seems they move another one over from the list of possible conditions into the column of ones you have.

During his cancer treatment Baird started injecting himself with insulin to counteract a steroid he was taking that drove up his blood sugar.

After chemotherapy, Baird stopped taking his insulin until he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. At a follow-up visit, Dr. Robert Ellis, an oncologist at the Kaiser Permanente Clinic in Longview, proposed the idea of adopting a vegetarian diet.

Ellis is a passionate champion of plants-based eating. In an interview, he noted that the top health conditions in the United States cancer, heart disease and obesity are all preventable and treatable through diet and nutrition.

One of the first things I go over with patients is their diet, he said. If you had a high-performance car and I told you that it needs high performance gas, would you really drive to Costco and put that crappy gas in your car?

In 2013 Kaiser issued a nutritional update for physicians urging health care providers to recommend plants-based diets to patients. Its now one of the most-cited scholarly journal articles ever published on the subject.

As one of the nations largest not-for-profit health plans and the largest managed care agency in the United States, with 10.2 million members, its in Kaisers interest to keep its patients healthy.

Ellis said he has serious discussions about diet with about 80 percent of his patients. Of that number, about 40 percent to 50 percent say theyre actually going to change the way they eat, he said. And the percentage that go full crazy on you and adopt a vegan diet like Bairds is around 10 percent to 20 percent, he said.

Were not hiding something, Ellis said. This isnt quantum physics.

A person can dramatically lower their blood sugar by eating plants and whole foods while avoiding meat and other animal products that are high in fat, he said.

Some of the biggest impediments to adopting this kind of diet are socioeconomic. Not having much money for food and living far away from grocery stores that sell quality produce can make it hard for people to commit, Ellis said.

But Baird is one of the few who has bought into the eating program. With a referral from his primary physician in hand, he next met with Andrea Ferreiro, a Portland-based Kaiser nutritionist who specializes in healthy eating plans.

Norm was kind of the ideal patient, Ferreiro said in an interview. Norms an engineer and hes pretty analytical, so we just kind of told him exactly what to do and how to do it and he implemented it precisely.

Baird proceeded to cut out all meat, dairy and other animal products from his meals. In a mere five weeks, his A1C score a measure of blood sugar dropped to 6.1, placing him below the 6.5 or above score used to classify a person as diabetic.

Baird was able to stop injecting himself with the insulin he had been using twice daily for two years. He also stopped taking an oral prescription medication for diabetes and went from monitoring his blood sugar four times a day to just two.

Its exceptional its a really big deal, Ferreiro said of Bairds progress.

Ellis said he had to revise Bairds medication regimen to compensate for the chemistry changes that can occur within the body after just a few days of vegetarian meals.

The rest of Bairds follow-up visits were conducted by phone by one of Ferrieros assistants, and he still receives a weekly call to review his numbers.

They call once a week to make sure nothings out of whack, he said.

Baird said he still fixes himself a plate with some meat on special occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving but only one.

No seconds and no leftovers, he said.

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A plants-based cure for diabetes - Longview Daily News