by Dr Mercola of www.mercola.com

In fact, most conventional treatments for type 2 diabetes utilize drugs that either raise insulin or lower blood sugar. Avandia, for example, lowers your blood sugar levels by increasing the sensitivity of liver, fat and muscle cells to insulin.

But you must understand that, ultimately, diabetes is NOT a blood sugar disease.

Type 2 diabetes is actually a disease caused by insulin resistance and faulty leptin signaling, both of which are regulated by diet.

Conventional treatment, which is focused on fixing the symptom of elevated blood sugar rather than addressing the underlying disease, is doomed to fail in most cases.

Virtually 100% of Type 2 Diabetics can be Cured if they are Compliant with Lifestyle Changes

Type 2 diabetes is virtually 100 percent avoidable, and can be effectively treated without medications in about the same percentage of cases.

Leptin, a relatively recently discovered hormone produced by fat, tells your body and brain how much energy it has, whether it needs more (saying “be hungry”), whether it should get rid of some (and stop being hungry) and importantly what to do with the energy it has (reproduce, upregulate cellular repair, or not).

In fact, the two most important organs that may determine whether you become (type 2, insulin resistant) diabetic or not are your liver and your brain, and it is their ability to listen to leptin that will determine this.

How is this done?

Well, that’s the kicker. The only known way to reestablish proper leptin and insulin signaling is through a proper diet and exercise!

There is NO drug that can accomplish this, but following these simple guidelines can help you do at least three things that are essential for successfully treating diabetes: recover your insulin/leptin sensitivity, help normalize your weight, and naturally normalize your blood pressure.

As an aside, none of these will drastically raise your risk of a heart attack the way Avandia will … and in fact will have only positive benefits on your heart and your entire body:

• Severely limit or eliminate sugar and grains in your diet, especially fructose, which is far more detrimental than any other type of sugar.Finding out your nutritional type will help you do this without much fuss.While nearly all type 2 diabetics need to swap out their grains for other foods, some people will benefit from using protein for the substitution, while others will benefit from using more vegetable-only carbohydrates. Therefore, along with reducing grains and sugars, determining your nutritional type will give you some insight into what foods you should use to replace the grains and sugars.

• Exercise regularly — a must for anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes. Typically, you’ll need large amounts of exercise, until you get your blood sugar levels under control. You may need up to an hour or two a day. Naturally, you’ll want to gradually work your way up to that amount, based on your current level of fitness.

• Avoid trans fats

• Get plenty of omega-3 fats from a high quality, animal-based source.
• Get enough high-quality sleep every night.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels. Recent studies have revealed that getting enough vitamin D can have a powerful effect on normalizing your blood pressure and that low vitamin D levels may increase your risk of heart disease.
• Address any underlying emotional issues and/or stress. Non-invasive tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can be extremely helpful and effective.
• Monitor your fasting insulin level. This is every bit as important as your fasting blood sugar. You’ll want your fasting insulin level to be between 2 to 4. The higher your level, the worse your insulin receptor sensitivity is.

The recommendations above are the key steps you need to achieve this reduction.

So please remember that a drug will never treat the underlying cause of type 2 diabetes the way these lifestyle changes will.

It looks like Avandia is set to go the way of Vioxx, which was also pulled from the market after killing 60,000 people. You don’t need to wait for the red tape to be removed to start looking out for your own health.

Diabetes runs in my family. About 15 years ago, I diagnosed my father with it and gave him these same guidelines to follow. He’s 81 years old and does two hours of exercise every single morning. He’s been able to keep his diabetes under control without taking a single drug by following these principles … and you can too.