After Marc Ramirez witnessed his mother’s battle with type 2 diabetes, and its devastating complications – which ultimately took her life – he was resigned to the idea that diabetes was his genetic destiny, especially after he was diagnosed with the disease himself. But in 2011, Marc watched the documentary Forks Over Knives and read my book Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, which inspired him to adopt a low-fat vegan diet. In less than two months, he reversed his diabetes and was off all his medications.
As a doctor, I’ve repeatedly observed these same powerful, positive results when patients with type 2 diabetes begin a plant-based diet. That’s why my clinical research team and I decided to put a plant-based diet to the test. We assigned participants to either a low-fat plant-based diet with unlimited portions of vegetables, grains, fruits, and legumes, or to the diet promoted at the time by the American Diabetes Association, which called for limiting carbohydrates and counting calories. The results were striking. The plant-based diet controlled blood sugar three times more effectively than the traditional diabetes diet.