Karl’s no physician, I don’t even think he has diabetes, but he’s a smart guy:
“You simply have to allow me to make the following policy change with regards to one disease — Diabetes:
- For those with Type II diabetes we will provide unlimited metformin (cheap, off-patent generic medicine that costs pennies a day) to anyone with the disease.
- We will provide no other care of any sort for Type II. You want or “need” it, pay cash or die. Period.
- We will also make changes to how we deal with Type I diabetics’ insulin requirements, as detailed below, that will cut said requirements dramatically.
Now before you scream in horror that I’m a monster, listen up.
Instead of medicine and, inexorably, amputations, dialysis, hospitalization and death we’re going to prescribe a lifestyle of eating no more than 50g of carbs a day, all in green vegetables high in vitamin C (e.g. broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc.)
Caloric intake is to otherwise be 70% saturated (animal) fat and 20% protein. Sugars, grains and starches, including but not limited to “white” foods (pasta, potatoes, breads, etc) are all prohibited. Zero-calorie / zero-carb spices and condiments are unrestricted, of course.
In short you eat (and don’t eat) what’s described in this post, less the fruits (since they are all fairly high-glycemic and the vitamin C requirement is taken care of.)
For most Type II diabetics eating this way will reduce their need for other drugs, including insulin, to a literal zero and since their blood sugar will normalize their need for many-times-a-day testing will also disappear, getting rid of both the pain of sticking one’s finger repeatedly and the cost.
For those who it doesn’t the metformin is there to help.
We will also accommodate all actual, documented exceptions — that is, those people for whom this lifestyle change legitimately doesn’t work.
Those who claim “it doesn’t work” will be locked in an isolation ward where they will be fed that diet for two weeks (with no access of any sort to any other source of sustenance) and be able to prove that for them, individually, it doesn’t work. If they’re right then they will get whatever medication or other intervention is necessary provided they keep to the lifestyle change. But if that empirical test shows that it does work (and it will for virtually everyone) then their ass will be discharged, the fact that they refuse to change what they eat will be noted in their chart and further complaints of “impossibility” will be ignored.”
Diabetic Mediterranean Diet 
He’s callous and a smartass. Why spend money on real research? If it works for two weeks in isolation it must work forever in real-world conditions! And those who don’t comply can “pay cash or die”.
What a jerk.
You are a shill for Big Pharma engaging in scare tactics to protect their obscene profits.
This 30 year type 2 individual after fighting to get my problem under control finds karl’s answers most interesting. I essentialy ended up using metformin, diet control he talks about , hearty exercise. I gave up on all the extra drugs and stuff. I do use a little humalog lispro to boost body’s response. Interestingly sticking tight to diet he recommends does reduce testing needs and flattens down bloog glucose levels.
My diet goal was to keep to a 1200 calories per day, strangle the grains and sugars and I used my caveman fingerprick meter to evaluate food choices and response. This may not be the most elegant scientific suggestion but work Done at University of Newcastle upon Tyne has demonstrated recovery of pancreas islets in Type 2 that aggressive diets and exercise do get the fat out of pancreas/liver allowing these organs to recover! MRI spectography has been used to demonstrate and see these responses in live patients.
The other completely missed issue is that Human Body is not infinite energy dump machine and can be saturated by under physical exercise and 24/7 quality food supply-sources! Hunter Gatherer body type was created in times of poor and intermittent food supplies and sources not for today. The human body has no ability to dump off load excess backed up blood glucose. The choice today is simple – cut caloric intake, and or up energy burn of hard sufficient exercise to keep numbers in check! Science has now finally come up with drugs to force kidneys to throw away blood glucose in Urine. Normally , kidneys are recovering glucose from urine and stuffing back in blood system.
Go back to Native Indians at potlach who would after loading up – go out and barf it out and then go back for more!
The horrendous numbers on type 2 diabetes in our age from 1970’s forward are proving a point!
The other joke is that I changed pdp drug plan to a new vendor where they limit metformin to 60 tablets in 30 days – 2 tablets a day. Claim so far is Medicare did that. Really? the most successful drug at pennies to the ton widely used is being limited by some accounting clot moron!
Speaking as a 30-year Type I diabetic with an HbA1c of 5.5%, I say this guy is spot on. I must have met 100 Type IIs who said “I could never do that!” …