When insulin was discovered nearly a century ago it was a great advancement for Type I diabetes. People suffering from this type of the disease don’t have the ability to make insulin. Which, of course, is a huge problem, since insulin plays a vital role in the body, by helping to move glucose from the blood into the cells where it can be metabolized for energy and cellular hydration. So insulin treatment was indeed a huge breakthrough for treating Type I diabetes.
But Type II diabetes has become a far bigger problem in recent decades. And it’s a totally different disease. In Type II diabetes, the body has insulin but the cells resist it (and resist taking glucose from the blood into the cells, regardless). So, insulin is fundamentally the wrong answer for type II diabetes.
But century-old thinking trapped the mainstream into trying to develop “new” insulin-like drugs for Type II diabetes.
It’s yet another example of medicine using cutting edge pharmaceutical technology based on an old, outdated, conceptually flawed idea.
Newer isn’t always better
This dangerous and ineffective focus on insulin continues despite decades of experience showing the “non-insulin-like” drug metformin does successfully treat Type II diabetes. Not only does it lower blood sugar in the short-term, it also prevents all the typical complications of diabetes, including eye, heart, and kidney diseases.
Of course, metformin doesn’t stop there. A new study shows it also helps ward off another, even more devastating complication of diabetes.
I’m talking about dementia.
I’ve been reporting on the connection between diabetes and dementia for several years. The link is so strong dementia has even been called “Type III diabetes.” And now it’s finally been recognized by mainstream research.
As is often the case, there’s plenty of light to shed on how to treat this problem, but medical research has preferred to work with the lights off, in the dark, in study after study. Most clinical studies on diabetes treatments were carried out before the onset of dementia in people with diabetes.
As a result, despite the billions spent on researching diabetes, it remains unclear to the mainstream what kind of approaches should be used when both dementia and diabetes are present together, as is so often the case.
That’s what makes the new study so unique.
The “old standby” reigns supreme
Researchers investigated long-term health outcomes for 8,328 older patients with Type II diabetes and dementia.
In fact, 22 percent of the study’s participants had Alzheimer’s disease and 30 percent had vascular dementia, which is caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain. Indeed, people with Type II diabetes run a higher risk of developing blood vessel problems, which lead to complications such as vascular dementia.
The patients took one of the following drugs:
1.) Metformin
2.) Insulin
3.) Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors — a new class of oral Type II diabetes drugs (including Januvia®)
Then, the researchers measured patient outcomes including overall mortality, heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.
Turns out, those who took the old standby metformin experienced a 17 percent reduced overall mortality risk.
By contrast, patients who took insulin experienced a:
- 16 percent increased mortality risk
- 30 percent higher heart attack risk
- 25 percent higher heart failure risk
Worse yet, patients who took a DPP-4 inhibitors (like Januvia®) experienced almost a 200 percent higher heart attack risk!
Plus, even after researchers took into account how long each participant had Type II diabetes, those who took insulin and newer insulin-like drugs fared much worse than those who took metformin. Consider this just one more reason to avoid insulin-like drugs for Type II diabetes.
The lead researcher said metformin is the obvious choice for treating Type II diabetes. Unlike insulin, metformin successfully prevents the well-known complications of Type II diabetes — including eye, heart, and kidney disease.
Better yet, metformin lowers the risk of developing pancreatic cancer (another common side effect of Type II diabetes) by up to 500 percent. For obvious reasons, this is one of the only drugs I ever recommend.
Naysayers persist — despite the data
Of course, the chair of the European Academy of Neurology questioned the study’s results, citing concerns that metformin doesn’t pass the blood-brain barrier (the membrane that keeps toxins and pathogens from reaching your brain).
But here’s what he and so many other so-called “experts” are missing…
Several new studies show that metformin goes to work directly in the GI microbiome. Specifically, it supports the healthy bacteria (also known as probiotics) in the GI tract and influences the body’s response to sugar, blocking any extra sugar from entering into the bloodstream and wreaking havoc.
So, it doesn’t matter whether metformin is absorbed into the blood or gets across the “blood-brain” barrier. Metformin has what I like to call “biome-availability.”
And metformin’s biome-availability also explains why it works so much better than insulin in the treatment of Type II diabetes. It blocks the extra sugar from ever getting into your bloodstream in the first place.
The other secret of metformin is that it is not really a drug at all, but is derived from the ancient folk remedy French lilac (called “goat’s rue” in the U.S., and is classified by the USDA as a noxious weed…which shows how much the government knows about the potential benefits of herbs and other natural therapies).
Just one caveat: metformin can reduce your absorption of vitamin B12. So, if you take it, make sure to supplement daily with a good vitamin B complex that contains at least 55 mg of B2, 50 mg of B3 (niacin), and 12 mcg of B12.
Of course, metformin isn’t the only way to treat diabetes. Research reveals that other natural treatments such as curcumin and ginger, together with chromium and vanadium, have remarkable abilities to prevent and reverse high blood sugar and diabetes. (And of course, the independent benefits of curcumin for preventing and reversing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are also well established.)
The bottom line: Insulin-like drugs are dangerous and the idea behind them is outdated. The science is there to show natural approaches for Type II diabetes are safe and effective. In fact, I give you all the details in my Integrative Protocol for Defeating Diabetes.
Click here to learn more about this online learning tool, or enroll today.
Source:
“Metformin Linked to Lower Mortality in Diabetes With Dementia,” Medscape (www.medscape.com) 6/26/2018