By Christopher Hassett

I’ve had people tell me that Type 2 diabetes, the kind I have, is reversible through diet.  Is this true? 

                    — Julian, Battery Park

It’s funny how important news like that manages to go quietly under the radar, especially when there are gargantuan industries out there whose one job is to spread the good word.  But you’d never know such a radically simple treatment for Type 2 diabetes even existed if you looked at, for instance, the American Diabetes Association website.  When landing on their homepage you do not come upon a banner headline reading, “STUDIES SHOW THAT DIET ALONE CAN CURE YOUR TYPE 2 DIABETES!!!”

Rather, what you find is a page popping with donation requests.  Nearly every image and every link feels as if it’s been placed for the sole purpose of pulling in cash, so much so that the phrase “Donate Today to Stop Diabetes” has even been trademarked.  “Donate Now,” “Donate Today,” “Give in Honor,” “Give in Memory,” “Shop to Stop Diabetes,” “Shop All Gifts Now,“ “Place your order,” “Last Chance for Delivery,” flash everywhere on the page.  There’s a link inviting you to join the ADA’s 12 month program, “Living with Type 2 Diabetes.”  This program is generously funded by Walmart, Lilly, and Boehringer Ingelheim.  Another link asks you to pledge your commitment to the ADA by transferring into their coffers your will, retirement plan, life insurance policy, life income gifts, trusts, etc.  Still another asks you to sign a petition to stop diabetes.  This page, though no less aimed at taking in your cash, is the only one I came across that actually had hard numbers or information of any significant kind relating to diabetes itself.  The petition, excerpted below, speaks to the troubling statistics of this otherwise preventable illness:

Diabetes is a serious threat to America’s public health and economy.

• A staggering 105 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes today.
• Diabetes is more deadly than breast cancer and AIDS combined.
• Unless we change course, 1 in 3 American adults will have diabetes in 2050.

We are at a tipping point in our national response to diabetes. Congress needs to invest now at levels that address the true human and economic burdens of diabetes…

• We know what works, based on previously-funded research and prevention efforts…

We urge Congress to provide the highest possible funding for critical diabetes research and prevention programs.

I’ll admit to being initially comforted in seeing the ADA had a firm grasp on the data.  It led me to believe they were on top of things, were somehow in charge, had inside information on ways of turning things around if not stopping dead in its tracks a national affliction pummeling millions of lives and crippling our health care system.  Indeed, I was heartened to see they knew “what works,” whatever that might mean, and since that knowledge was predicated on funded research, I had to believe it was nothing other than solid, ordained and true.  Curious to know more, I clicked on the “Type 2 Diabetes” link in hopes of getting a clearer picture on this yet undivulged information about what works.  This, unfortunately, dropped me onto a page that amounted to little more than a short preamble to buying a book, “8 Weeks to Maximizing Diabetes Control.”

Not one to be discouraged, though admittedly I was starting to feel a bit strung along, I followed that link with still faint hope the book might clarify and expand on the rather nebulous assertion of “what works.”  But far from even hinting at anything workable, the book convolutedly claims to be a “diabetes management plan that helps you manage your diabetes.  It’s the plan for when you don’t have a plan.”  Hmmm.  If ever a claim were so singularly self-devouring it is this one.  They are words borne of the very sugar this organization suggests we manage, empty and without any real substance at all.  Yet this is the only book on the page the ADA offers to help people with Type 2 Diabetes.

Perhaps my expectations were to high, not only for the book but for the ADA in general, because if an organization of this size and with such monumental patronage and wealth can offer so little in the form of clarity or specificity or depth of content, then maybe they’re the wrong leaders for those in often desperate need to be turning to for full disclosure of what works in not just managing or controlling but in altogether overcoming the disease.

It becomes clear very quickly that the ADA’s sole mission is not to cure (the word “cure” doesn’t even show up on their website); it’s to help you “live with,” “manage,” “treat,” “care for,” “medicate” and “control” your disease for the rest of your life.  In other words, they are at the forefront of normalizing diabetes, as if it were an inevitable consequence of these modern times and, as such, ours to merely live with and accept.

Without question the disease, at least Type 2 of it, is an inevitable consequence of the Western diet, as processed and fat-saturated as it is, but by no means was it inevitable that out of nowhere in history so many millions were left to contend with a debilitating and life-shortening illness just because they happened to be living at this moment in history.  Nothing viral has happened to ramp up the incidence of diabetes, nor did our biologies en masse suddenly change circa 1980 when the disease began to swiftly take an upward tack.  In 1980 5.8 million people in the US had diabetes.  Today, as noted, 105 million either have it or are on course for it.  Only one thing attributable has changed in those 30 years, and that is the full-blown transformation of our food system, which is now wholly dominated by corporately manufactured foods.  This one point the ADA does not speak to on their website, nor is it to be found anywhere in their literature.

It is my humble suggestion that you be wary of such unwieldy and evasive organizations, and even more strongly I caution you against allowing them to manage or medicate your life, especially those organizations who are so massively funded by food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

I can say with confidence that the ADA (as with the FDA) will never officially tell you that, for instance, that if you eat exclusively raw foods for just one week there is a strong possibly that by the end of the week you’ll no longer need your insulin or oral medications.  This startling reversal has been shown to happen time and again in study after study around the globe.  Continue on that same diet for 30 days and you should expect to find your blood sugar has normalized completely.

These same studies continue to show that returning to a more traditional plant-based diet virtually eradicates Type 2 Diabetes.  How so?  In most cases, Type 2 Diabetes is caused by cells that are so clogged with fat that they become unresponsive to insulin, a hormone that signals the cell to pull glucose from the blood.  These fat deposits effectively shut down the cell’s own insulin receptors, causing glucose to bypass the cell and continue on down the bloodstream.  Glucose is the fuel for our cells.  Without it our bodies and brains shut down.  A diet low in fat, on the other hand, while also being high in fiber and light on calories, allows our cells to do what they want to do on their own: heal themselves.  We see this every day when our skin heals after a cut.  Cells naturally self-repair.  So when given the chance they also very quickly kick out excess fat and return to their normally responsive state that once again allows for insulin to escort glucose into the cell.

Until we make a conscious decision to remove from our diet not just unhealthy foods but all foods advertised to us, since these “foods” have been crafted, designed, specifically for our tongues and our addictive tendencies, then we as individuals and as a nation will continue to battle diabetes.  This is an empirical truth.

If you are trying to stabilize your blood sugar (or your mood, or your heart, or your asthma, or your weight…) a good rule to follow is to avoid any food marketed to you in an ad.  Don’t buy it.  Don’t eat it.  Avoid it outright.  Instead, embrace a more traditional diet of whole foods and watch your body beautifully heal itself; watch your Type 2 Diabetes fade quietly away.

  Christopher Hassett is a life coach and teacher of self awareness.  You can reach him through his website at www.threeperfections.com.  Do you have a question you’d like Christopher to respond to in this column?  Email him at conversations@threeperfections.com.

BY CHRISTOPHER HASSETT

My sex drive of late has pretty much vanished. I love my girlfriend and love being intimate with her. I’m just not feeling any desire for sex. Is there anything I can be doing with my diet that might change that? 

            — Carolin, West Village

Diet truly is the miracle remedy for nearly all that ails us. So it should come as no surprise to hear that even the smallest dietary tweaks can bring on noticeable changes in libido. Simply eating well, eating fresher, eating less, can enliven us sexually, if only in that we’re feeling better about ourselves: sexier, shaplier, sharper.

But diet has significant physiological affects as well, and it is in this area that some compelling research has emerged in recent years. One study I found particularly interesting came out of research done by Marrena Lindberg, author of “The Orgasmic Diet.” Though she’s not a doctor, Lindberg’s findings are gaining support and some notable credibility in the medical community, to the point where some of the more forward-thinking nutritional schools are taking her work seriously.

My opinion of her diet is that it’s valid if one wants to specifically address libido, which is your concern here. However, when considering good overall health I think the diet falls short, since it recommends that at least 30 percent of calories in every meal come from protein and 30 percent from fat, with these calories primarily being derived from meat or dairy sources. These pecentages, for my liking, are far too high, and the source of all that fat and protein is, in my opinion, not only misguided from an ethical standpoint
but entirely risky when considering long-term health.

Lindberg outright cautions against low-fat vegetarian or vegan ways of eating because both, in her opinion, are “libido killers.” Now, while it would be my pleasure to argue against this claim, I want instead to stay focused on the true intention of this column, which is to spotlight at least one non-pharmaceutical way to awaken desire. If you are vegetarian or vegan, I still think the main thrust of her diet might help in that goal.

That main thrust, then, is a supplemental one. In other words, the critical players are supplements — omega 3 fish oil, magnesium, zinc and calcium. These supplements basically do all the work, with the actual food merely weighing in as support. With appropriate doses of each, especially the omega 3, improved libido can occur in as little as one week for men and three to six weeks for women.

It’s generally around this sixth week, Lindberg says, “[that] women tell me, ‘Oh, now I understand what men feel like. I just have this desire constantly to have sex.’ It’s just sort of an animal thing.” She says it’s common for women to feel slightly disoriented as their libidos come alive, because suddenly, quite often in a single day, so much begins to happen in their bodies that hadn’t notably happened in the years or even decades prior. But take pleasure in the confusion, explore its every shadow and nook, because women on her diet say they’re reaching orgasm more quickly, with greater intensity and frequency, than they ever had before. They’re also saying, and Lindberg includes herself in this category, that when combined with a daily regiment of Kegel excercises they’re becoming spontaneously orgasmic as well. But Lindberg notes that for increased libido alone, perhaps minus on-the-spot orgasms, the Kegels aren’t necessary.

In order to bring all of this into being, the daily dosage for fish oil needs to be quite high: 1,700 mg E.P.A. and 1,300 mg D.H.A., while calcium, magnesium and zinc, which you can get in a single capsule, are normal daily allowances. It should be noted that some medical professionals warn against “megadosing” on fish oil because of its effectiveness in thinning the blood, so if you have concerns in this area it would be wise to consult with a doctor or nutritionist before venturing in.

With that said, research does show that a diet high in omega 3 fatty acids raises dopamine levels in the brain, regulates serotonin, increases blood circulation, and helps elevate mood, all of which contribute not only to improved libido but to overall mental health. The addition of magnesium and zinc is a complementary one, since the two together help remove barriers in the blood that would otherwise limit the beneficial effects of fish oil. Other barriers to these benefits are, unfortunately, the usual suspects — caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. Which means most of us will find it impossible to get through even the first day without proving unfaithful to the cause.

Remember, this is just one approach to tweaking your diet for the sole purpose of improving libido, and it’s effects (or lack of) can only be subjective. What works for many may not work for you. If it doesn’t, then you should know that there are other changes you can make in your diet, both specific and general, that might similarly awaken long-dormant desires, and they would have nothing to do with the use of fish oil. It could be your most pleasurable pursuit: research, experiment and have fun.

Christopher Hassett is a columnist and natural healer living in New York City. Learn more about natural approaches to health at ThreePerfections.com. Do you have a question or comment for Christopher? You can e-mail him at conversations@threeperfections.com

“The program started in 1971 as a way to help people struggling with mostly alcohol, but also drug problems,” says Program Director Murray Edwards, MA. “The idea was for a supportive community and network of people who experienced working with addiction, an ‘each one teach one’ kind of mentality.”

Issues of addiction are often intertwined with mental health, homelessness, sexual and verbal abuse and lack of stability, as well as the physical toll that years of drug abuse takes on the body.

Edwards says that since the Fred Cooper Center on 127 West 25th Street opened last September, they have admitted about 220 clients, and graduated 65. “For many of them, drugs and alcohol started as a way to cope with those feelings that were so overwhelming and all-consuming. But over the years, the coping mechanism becomes problematic and leads them into other problems…because perhaps they were drunk or high, and got into a fight and were arrested.”

Once you remove the addiction, notes Edwards, there is generally an initial relief — followed by the tremendous struggle of losing a longtime coping mechanism. Success lies in changing lifestyles.

“A big saying in the treatment community is that it’s people, places and things that lead you back to drugs and alcohol,” Edwards remarks. “For a lot of people to get clean and stop using, it’s hard to change their old lifestyle, friends, places they used to go. We try to build a new support network, a new way to socialize that’s not based around drugs and alcohol.”

BARBARA

Barbara was 29 when she began doing crack cocaine. She got kicked out of the family home and was living on the street for years.

In January 2011, she decided she didn’t want to use anymore. She was referred to BRC’s Reception Center, where she found help. Once she began to get back on her feet, she was moved into the Fred Cooper Center.

Edwards recalls that when Barbara first entered the program, she had a bad attitude, telling people to their face, “I don’t like you.” Her mindset was finding ways to get high and still get over on the system. When she participated in the group counseling sessions, that began to change. She began to look and feel better, to act differently, and started to like who she was becoming. She came to a support group recently, and new clients pointed to Barbara’s success as something they aspired to.

“I had to change my attitude. I had a bad attitude,” Barbara admits. Now, when she thinks about using, she remembers the last time she did crack, saying, “I don’t want to go back like that.”

“The biggest challenge,” Barbara notes, “was not using. The biggest help was the ladies’ group. I would talk about my feelings, about wanting to use and the counselors would give me feedback and advice.”

She also made connections with the other ladies. Although that initial group of women has moved on, when Barbara graduated, she continued to attend the ladies’ group twice a week, where she found the help she needed to stay clean.

Back in contact with her family, Barbara says she recently spent the weekend with some local relatives. She lives in a BRC-sponsored apartment, and although she doesn’t associate with her old friends, she admits that former neighbors have commented on how much better she looks since she quit doing crack.

“I go for my check-up. I went through a lot of things and I got good relations with my kids now,” says Barbara, regarding her four adult children. “I talk to them every day on the phone. Some are down South, some in Schenectady and two are in the city.”

She has been clean for more than a year, and her mental health is stable. With the help of the BRC-sponsored Metropolitan Apartment Program job preparedness services, she has created a resume and is looking for employment as a receptionist.

Offering some advice, Barbara encouraged other addicts to, “Give yourself a chance. Give yourself a break. [BRC] can show you how to be clean again.”

WILLIE

Willie was 42 years old in 1992, when he started to get high, lured into smoking crack by a female partner.

“I was in and out of prison and jail since then, and I just got tired of it,” recalls Willie — who said his addiction led him to shoplifting to fund his habit.

He had just finished doing a year and a half in prison when he got picked up for another crime. They were going to give him the maximum penalty when Willie begged them for help, saying, “You keep locking me up, but I got a drug and alcohol problem and that’s not doing anything for me. Get me into a program.”

In the winter of 2010, a judge entered Willie into rehab, but wouldn’t let him leave Rikers Island alone. An escort drove him to the Tombs (the NYPD’s Manhattan Detention Complex in Chinatown) — where he walked the short distance to rehab at BRC’s Bowery location.

“I was hearing voices and I thought me getting high would help the voices, but it ended up making it worse. The jail thing, I got tired of that. Enough was enough. So I came out of the Tombs and headed to BRC. I don’t fault nobody but myself,” Willie says. “I really don’t look back on my past. I talked to people about it, but my past is my past, and I ain’t going back there no more.”

Willie credits the BRC’s one-on-one counseling and support groups as being invaluable to his recovery. Because he does not talk freely about his life, the biggest challenge was opening up.

Still, he worked the program, noting that his biggest accomplishment was graduating and moving into his own apartment. Edwards, remembering Willie’s graduation speech, says he proudly stated that it was the first thing in his life he ever finished.

Willie now has a network of friends from his support group, and avoids the pitfalls that come with returning to his old neighborhood.

People, places and things, Willie says, are constant reminders of what his life used to be like: “I test myself. I go back to my old neighborhood and people they out, they say how good I’m doing. The drug dealers try to give me drugs, but I walk away from them because I’m in recovery. They throw it to me and tell me I don’t owe them nothing, but I just leave it on the ground. I know that’s what they want me to do — pick it up and go get high, because they know that then I’ll come back and give them all my money.

“I’m definitely not going to put myself in no kind of situation to get back to jail,” Willie vows. “Sometimes I’ll be in a situation where you gotta know how to walk away. Words don’t hurt you. As long as nobody don’t put a hand on me, I’ll be alright. I can walk away. But there’s people out there sicker than me.”

People who feel like they want to get their life together should come to the BRC, Willie asserts. “I know there’s help out there,” he says. “It’s hard to do it alone. I tried that and it don’t work. You can do it, but you gotta be sincere. You gotta come here and tell the truth, and if you’re real, you’re gonna get help.”

DAVID

Making a break with drug and alcohol abuse was extremely difficult for David. When his father retired from the military, his parents relocated him and his younger brother to Puerto Rico. Shortly after, they were involved in a fatal accident.

“When we were young, my brother and I lost our parents in a car accident and were raised by uncles and aunts,” David recalls. “We looked for guidance from hustlers in the streets and started doing drugs at an early age — heroin and cocaine, because it was cheap.”

Eventually, the boys returned to New York, where David began studying culinary arts — but the old life called out to him.

“There wasn’t no rock bottom for me,” David says. “I was working and everything was going smooth, until I got fired, and didn’t have nowhere to go except to my little brother. He was shooting up heroin, so I started shooting up with him. In the middle of all of that stuff, he OD’d.”

Feeling responsible for his brother’s death, David began running the streets, doing drugs — and committing crimes to pay for them.

“I was shooting up and stealing, and caught a petty larceny charge,” he says. “The judge mandated I go to a residential treatment program, but I got moved into a three-quarter house, and then [to the BRC program].”

Edwards recalls that when David went before the judge, he said that rather than being arrested, he felt as though he was rescued from the relapse caused by his brother’s death.

“You give your urine, you do the groups, you talk about stuff you really don’t want to talk about, and everything is uncomfortable,” David says. “But eventually, it kicked in. Once you’ve been where I’ve been, you start feeling better. Next thing you know, I was ready to get a job, so I found a job at Long Island University, but at the same time, I applied here.”

When a position became available, the BRC hired him as a kitchen employee.

David occasionally attends the aftercare program; when he sees clients where he was, he is proud that he got his life back on track. He has his own furnished room, a full-time job at BRC and has been clean for two-and-a-half years.

“I try,” David asserts. “I’m not saying I don’t struggle. I go to NA [Narcotics Anonymous]. I knew what it was to drink champagne with a rich person and eat out of the garbage. I used to wake up and shoot up, but now I get up and drink a cup of coffee, and think, ‘I’m going to work.’ Everyone asks, ‘Why are you always so happy?’ If you been where I’ve been, you’d be smiling, too.”

For more info on the BRC Fred Cooper Substance Abuse Service Center, call 212-533-5151 or visit brc.org.

Conversations with Health

BY CHRISTOPHER HASSETT

I am continually tired and “foggy” in the head. I drag through the day and find it difficult to do anything beyond what is absolutely required of me. How does the food I eat affect my energy and my awareness? 

— Monica, West Village

Your question is pointed in exactly the right area. Food is indeed the critical element in both sustaining our energy and maintaining a clean and ongoing awareness throughout the day. In that sense, if you were to begin with a single change to your daily routine, I would strongly encourage you to take stock of what you eat.

The first step could be that you write down everything you put into your mouth from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. For instance, “This morning I woke up tired. I ate a small breakfast of toast and a protein drink. I drank a coffee on my way to work. On my break, just beginning to feel alive, I had another large coffee and ate a bag of chips. For lunch I ordered a salad with a large packet of ranch dressing. Smoked a cigarette to clear my head. Later in the afternoon, exhausted and ready to plunge into a sleep, I had a nutritional bar with a Coke… .”

This is a powerful method of journaling since it not only documents what you’re putting into your body each day, it also charts your various moods, energy cycles and attitudes throughout the day. As it relates to food specifically, if you’re observing that what goes into your body is primarily packaged foods supplemented with coffees, sodas and energy drinks, then it is likely you are starving yourself in the nutritional sense, even though all outward signs might show you to be at a perfectly acceptable weight. This, by the way, is the great irony of our times: an overconsumption of “food” that leaves many of us in a state of ongoing starvation. What are we starved for? Not calories, but nutrients.

In his excellent book, “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan begins with three simple ideas: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Pollan loosely defines “food” as anything our grandmothers would find familiar in the marketplaces of their time — vegetables, grains, meats, dairy, etc. He rightly argues that most of what is termed “food” in our supermarkets today is not food at all, but products of science. These products, he tells us, are little more than “edible food-like substances [that] come in packages elaborately festooned with health claims.” To which he cautions, “If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication it’s not really a food.”

These food-like products, which have swallowed up the majority of shelf space in our supermarkets, are on the whole empty of all nutritional worth, in spite of their many claims. And though they have been engineered to taste good, they essentially run our bodies into the gutter, leaving us weak, fatigued, vulnerable to depression, illness, disease and premature death.

On the other hand, a plant-based diet — one that gets the majority of its calories from whole plant foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds and minimally processed oils — readily transmits the very nutrients and energies from the earth our bodies and minds need to re-energize, heal and ultimately thrive.

So if you are looking to clear away the fog and reconnect to a lively and more vibrant Self, I strongly encourage you to move out of the supermarket and into the farmer’s market, where packaged foods simply don’t exist. But if you must shop the supermarket, keep to its outer edges. There on the perimeter, where your grandmother would now feel most at home, is where you’ll find all the nutritional energy you’ll need to get you through the day.

Christopher Hassett is an artist, columnist and healing practitioner living in New York City.  Do you have a question for Christopher?  You can e-mail him at althealth@threeperfections.com.