Prevent diabetes without losing weight

If you’ve been reading my newsletters very long, you already know that I take a special interest in diabetes. I’ve written a book on it, The Type 2 Diabetes Breakthrough. And I frequently report on the latest research.

Why? Because type-2 diabetes is a bad thing to have — and it’s 100% preventable. No matter what your genetics are, you don’t have to get this disease.

As you may know, one of the major keys to preventing it is weight control. But now, there’s new research that shows how you may be able to prevent this disease without losing weight. That’s how powerful this intervention is.

Researchers recently looked at a group of patients with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a disorder that leads to diabetes. The telltale signs of metabolic syndrome include an elevated level of triglycerides in the blood, weight gain around the waist, and either an elevation in blood pressure or a blood sugar level over 100 mg/dl.

The bottom line is this. If you can correct these problems before diabetes develops, you can prevent diabetes altogether.

The normal way to reverse metabolic syndrome is to lose weight. This is still the most effective treatment. However, this new study shows just how effective another treatment is. It’s so effective, in fact, that it can reverse metabolic syndrome even if you don’t lose weight.

The study looked at the effect of four different diets on metabolic syndrome. One was a diet high in saturated fats, such as the fats that are found in meats and dairy products. The second diet was high in monosaturated fats. These are the fats in olive oil and nuts, particularly almonds and macadamias.

The third diet was your basic low-fat, high-complex carbohydrate diet. This is the diet that’s primarily responsible for the epidemic of diabetes today. For those with genetic tendencies to diabetes, this diet will surely take them there.

But this last group did something different. In addition to the diet, this group also took a special supplement of 1.24 grams of concentrated fish oil.

The last group had the same low-fat, high-complex carbohydrate diet as group three, but instead of taking fish oil, they took sunflower oil.

All of the patients were on these programs for a total of three months. The researchers then measured the effect these diets had on these patients. The findings back up what I’ve been saying for years.

The patients who faired best were those on the high-monosaturated-fat diet. Their triglycerides went down. The patients on the low-fat, high-complex carbohydrate diet showed an increase in all of the metabolic syndrome findings. Their cholesterol went up and so did their triglyceride levels.

That is except the ones who were also taking the fish oil. Their triglycerides actually decreased as much as the high-fat, monounsaturated group. The fish oil they were taking eliminated all of the negative aspects of the diet. Or as the authors put it, “The adverse effects of long-term, low-fat, high-complex carbohydrate diets may be avoided by concomitant omega-3 supplementation.”

But there was something else about this group. They reversed their metabolic syndrome in a very special way. They did it without losing weight. This indicates just how powerful taking fish oils can be.