The hunt for a diabetes cure goes on . . . but is the answer already known?

Skip to 19.35 mins of Diabetes: No longer the preserve of the rich?

"We've always known that severely restricting your carbohydrate intake reduces the effects of having not enough insulin . . . and certainly, for people with Type 2 diabetes, if you could really restrict their diet then you probably will reverse the numbers who have diabetes.  But actually, living on a 600-calorie diet is really an extremely difficult thing to do - so how practical that is, I'm not sure."

Hang on, so if "restricting" the carbohydrates so clearly "reduces" the need for insulin, would it not be logical to try and completely "eliminate" carbohydrates and analyse what effect that has?

Wouldn’t that at least be worth trying?  The study doesn’t need to limit calories, either: the subjects could eat as much protein and fat as they want as long as they stay away from carbohydrates.

Of course, most experts will argue that such a study would be impossible to conduct because the human body simply cannot survive on a diet lacking the "essential" carbohydrates.

The doctors will then go on to insist that not only will the test subjects quickly lack energy, they’ll also be at an increased risk of heart disease, failed kidneys, scurvy and numerous debilitating vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  Death, they’ll tell you, is an inevitability and only around the corner.

But is this really the case?

If carbohydrates are so vital, how does one explain, for example, the good health of Eskimos that still follow their traditional diet?

Despite these individuals almost never eating anything other than meat and fat, they nevertheless don’t have any problems with heart disease, obesity, scurvy, caries, gum disease, osteoporosis, etc – or at least they didn’t until they started to come into contact with western civilisation and began to adopt western dietary habits.

So how exactly do Eskimos fare on their traditional diet?

For starters, check out Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s account of his five years total living with the Mackenzie River Eskimos in Canada, as well as the results of the study at Bellevue Hospital that he was subsequently involved in.

Have a look and make up your own mind.

I’d be happy to hear arguments from the medical community to explain the empirical and scientific findings while justifying the consumption of carbohydrates.