Gerson Therapy (Max Gerson, MD) people (Gerson Institute, http://www.gerson.org) claim to be able to cure diabetes… it's not a totally vegetarian way of eating, but its adherents eat a specific way for a couple of years. They usually don't go back to eating a huge amount of animal protein.

That said, I'm type II myself, and I want to find out more information about "curing" it.

But long term, I don't know. I suspect for continued blood sugar control they will need to adopt a low-carb diet, and that might be difficult on a raw food vegan plan, not to mention all the planning and prep. I recall reading somewhere that Dr. Bernstein (diabetes doctor) says he's never seen good glucose control on a vegetarian or vegan diet. His glucose standards are pretty tight.

There's a Canadian documentary out there called "My Big Fat Diet." It's about a First Nation's village that agrees to follow a more
ancestral diet for a year. Consequently, they had much of the same success as Cousens did.
I haven't seen the documentary, but info about it is on the web and You Tube. Seems it's been aired in Canada but not down here in the states.

Almost all of the long-term, successful raw food vegans I've come across live in warm climates. I was a vegan (not raw) for a long time (fat source was nuts and nut butter only)and my skin was extremely dry and cracked, also my hair felt like a brillo pad. I was beginning to think I was missing out on an essential nutrient for repair. I was also hungry a lot and had trouble keeping my weight down. Now consuming animal protein and fat, my skin and hair are in much better shape, not hungry, and the weight is coming down.

Unfortunately, I think that if the medical community, as a whole, ever shifts stance to support a version of a healthy diet, they will,due to vegetarianism's "being in the public eye" longer, throw their allegiance in that camp. Why? Because it's relatively safe and non-controversial as seen through the prism of the general public's point of view, i.e., mitigating chances of battling a lawsuit.

Re Spurlock, we have no idea what else he may have been eating, or how much alcohol he might have been consuming in addition. He lied about the caloric intake and blew a lot of other stuff out of proportion, so I have no reason to trust anything else. Also, I think it was John Stossel who put a few people on a McD-only diet for a month, just eating normally and not trying to blow it out of proportion, doing their normal exercise & activity, and so on, and they maintained or lost weight with no substantial degradation in blood work, if any. That's how I recall it, but I haven't dug around to verify I have remembered everything correctly, so standard disclaimers apply.

As to Type 2 to 1, I've heard from a number of sources over the years, sources I'd generally have confidence in, that eventually the B cells can give out due to being overworked producing insulin for resistant receptors. I suppose that's one reason to supplement with insulin, so that the pancreas doesn't have to operate at 100% all the time. But without digging around, I suppose it's possible I misunderstood and what was meant was that 2 could evolve into 1-like management, i.e., insulin injections and the same sort of close monitoring due to extreme resistance. In other words, not technically the same, but essentially the same treatment and management.

Vegans always seem to have a problem with anemia. Meat supplies a host of B vitamins that vegans miss out on. Supplementing with vitamins is something they should not overlook.

Ok, Spurlock was less than truthful and had a personal vendetta against McDonalds. He exaggerated and blew things out of proportion. I get it. At the end of the month, he did gain 27 pounds and his blood work was way out of a healthy range. Who eats like that anyway? It comes down to personal choices and personal responsibility. I agree. But even if he did gain 27 pounds and his triglycerides and cholesterol were way out of range, did the amount of calories have a whole lot to do with it? I don't think so. At least, calories are not the main culprit. I think most people (including Spurlock) don't get this.

I don't think eating a vegan diet vs. a paleo diet is the issue either. I think you can eat meat and vegetables and reverse your diabetes too. The key to regaining cellular balance with insulin insensitivity is to eat foods that will not spike your blood sugar. It is not the calories in McDonalds food that makes us fat and insensitive to our own insulin. It is the high glycemic elements of their food like the white bread, deep-fried potatoes and all the sugar in most everything they make. When you spike your blood sugar with high glycemic foods on a regular basis, your body cannot make enough insulin to bring blood sugars down to a normal level. Thus, the excess glucose turns to fat.

I find it amusing that people on a diet will sit there and eat those puffed rice cakes or order white toast without butter. These kinds of things will spike your blood sugar higher than if you slapped table sugar on your tongue. We used to think that eating baked potatoes with butter and sour cream was bad because of the toppings. Now we find out that it would have been better to eat the butter and sour cream and skip the potato all together. It is the potato that spikes our blood sugar and makes us fat.

Carbohydrates are not all the same. Looking into the glycemic index and glycemic load of the foods we eat is the key to reversing diabetes. I work with diabetics (type 1 and 2)and teach them how to improve their diabetes. Many have reversed their diabetes through the "Healthy For Life" program by Dr Strand. Dr. Whitaker's program works well too. They both eliminate or restrict high glycemic foods in order to bring blood sugars down.

You mentioned that type 2 diabetes can progress into type 1 diabetes. I have never heard of this before. Do you have any information or links that could tell me how this happens? Type 1 is where the beta cells of the pancreas have died and cannot be regenerated. There is no cure for type 1. Unless they can grow a new pancreas or get a pancreatic transplant, they will always need insulin. how does type 2 progress into type 1?

I know many people (vegans) who have reversed Type 2 on a diet full of grains: oatmeal, corn, rice, bread, pasta, etc.

You get similar results whether you choose the animal products or the starch. But you can't have both.