Managing (or curing) type 2 diabetes without drugs

by working with the vagus nerve, herbs and diet.

I went to hospital with my lungs shut down and a covid diagnosis, but left the hospital 13 days later with a diabetes diagnosis.

Diabetes and the fight and flight response

Yes, my blood sugar was high, but surely that could have been caused by the body going into a panic state? When that happens the sympathetic nervous system - our fight and flight response - takes over from our parasympathetic nervous system, produces adrenaline and cortisol, and shuts down insulin production. High levels of stress and fear generally throw our entire hormonal system into disarray. That includes insulin production and sugar metabolism generally.

“The sympathetic system controls “fight-or-flight” responses. In other words, this system prepares the body for strenuous physical activity. The events that we would expect to occur within the body to allow this to happen do, in fact, occur. The parasympathetic system regulates “rest and digest” functions.”

So I asked myself, do I really have diabetes, and if so, how do I manage it or cure it without drugs? And those questions have led me on a miraculous journey of discovery. Yes, my blood sugar is still in disarray, but I took myself off the drugs after leaving hospital, and am mostly within the safe blood sugar range, meaning I can take the time to study type 2 diabetes and experiment with the alternatives to insulin and metformin, thus dodging their lists of nasty side effects.

An epidemic of diabetes

And I am not alone. There is an epidemic of diabetes, or at least, what is being called diabetes. 5.3% of the Australian population has been diagnosed with diabetes, so this is a huge money spinner for the drug companies, and keeps and army of specialists in work.

“One in twenty (5.3%) people had diabetes in 2020-21. Almost one in five (19.2%) people over 75 years had diabetes.”

“Around 1.3 million people were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 2000 and 2020, according to linked NDSS and APEG data. This was around 60,000 people each year – an average of 166 new diagnoses a day.

Take a moment to consider those figures. You can find more details on these figures here. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Alternatives to taking the diabetes drugs

I believe that everything is curable, and that the body can repair itself when given the right support. There are three aspects to my study:

1. I am a high anxiety person and have been all my life, meaning I spend most of my day, and night time too, in fight and flight mode, rather than rest and digest mode. No matter what the outcome for the diabetes, it has to be a good idea to handle that, so I have been studying how to stimulate the vagus nerve, which controls most of the rest and digest mode, with massage, sound and electrical stimulation.

2. I am an amateur herbalist, and I know there are many herbs recommended for both shifting us from fight and flight mode to rest and digest mode, and a different array of herbs recommended for control of blood sugar.

   1. The simplest are herbs like lemon balm that calm the fight and flight response and bring the parasympathetic vagus nerve back into play.

   2. There are also many herbal products that claim to help improve blood sugar metabolism. These are often complex high-priced formulations. As a pensioner on a limited fixed income, the prices are not sustainable for me, so there has to be a simpler, cheaper and more sustainable way.

3. I also believe in healthy eating, and we can eat a diet low in carbohydrates and sugars, to keep our blood sugar down a little, while we sort everything else out.

So I have three pathways of research:

1. What is the best way to get the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems back into balance? This can be a combination of physical stimulation of the vagus nerve itself, such as with sound, and of taking the necessary herbs to calm down the fight and flight response. Getting these systems back into balance may cause the body to generate the correct level of insulin, which has been shut down by stress hormones. Perhaps the body can even fix itself, or at least function without drugs if the vagus nerve is able to do its job.

2. What herbs can I use in the interim to directly impact in the level of sugar in the blood, particularly while I am getting my parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems back into balance?

3. What foods are good for those with high blood sugar? Are there any “miracle” foods that can be trusted to bring blood sugar down? The doctors tell me no, but I have found 2 so far that can be guaranteed to bring my blood sugar down. Eggs are my number 1 miracle food. And are there any existing dietary systems such as keto or paleo that could work - perhaps with modifications - for diabetics? Well apparently yes, even though the diabetes specialist I saw told me they would kill me. Who to believe?

There may be other pathways, but these are enough for me for now.

1 Using sound to stimulate the vagus nerve

You can find exercises, all over the web, for stimulating the vagus nerve. I have purchased a system designed by Jim Donovan that I am very keen on at present. I am not saying it is the only system, or the best system, or even that it works, as I have only just started using it. But so far, I like it and am optimistic that it will help reduce my production of stress hormones. He’s got a lot of free stuff so you can try it out for yourself.

• Jim Donovan

2 Using herbs to calm the fight/flight response

What herbs are there growing cheaply or freely in Australia that we can harvest in large enough quantities to make our own calming medicines?

Lemon Balm

Lemon balm is recommended by Dr Berg who has a good explanation of the link between diabetes and stress in this video. It is relatively straightforward to grow, so a good option for the cash strapped like me.

And for the Australians reading this, you can source it locally from here.

• Melissa (Lemon Balm) Tea from Tea Life

3 Using complex herbal products to directly impact upon blood sugar

I see this a potentially a temporary measure, particularly because it is so expensive, and as yet, I have no idea if the herbal supplements I am taking have replaced the metformin. I am still engaged in trying to establish how these herbs work, and whether their effectiveness is really just the same as using herbs to calm the fight/flight response.

There are articles all over the web telling us the results of using various herbs, but few get to the point of telling us how, so we really have to dig deep to find out how they are controlling blood sugar. Are they simply working directly on the fight/flight response and shutting down adrenaline and cortisol production?

But one herbal extract has been extensively researched by mainstream medicine researchers, using mainstream methodologies, and that is Berberine. Many plants contain berberine so it can be extracted from a variety of sources.

Berberine

Here is one statement on the internet on just one of the recommended herbs, Berberine.

Possibly Effective for...Diabetes.

Berberine seems to slightly reduce blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. Also, some early research suggests that taking 500 mg of berberine 2-3 times daily for up to 3 months might control blood sugar as effectively as metformin or rosiglitazone. (https://www.rxlist.com/berberine/supplements.htm)

The links below are to peer reviewed medical articles, the first comparing Metformin with Berberine and the second telling us more about what Berberine is, how it works (including its impact on blood sugar), and its range of benefits.

• Efficacy of Berberine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

• Berberine: Botanical Occurrence, Traditional Uses, Extraction Methods, and Relevance in Cardiovascular, Metabolic, Hepatic, and Renal Disorders

I find it noteworthy that with drugs we get lists of potentially dangerous side effects and with herbs we get lists of all sorts of good ways in which the plant contributes to human health. Berberine, it seems, is a very useful herb for a range of health conditions, with no known serious side effects, although apparently it can upset the stomach when taken in high doses over long periods of time.

I plan to ask my diabetic specialist doctor (who keeps threatening me with blindness, gangrene or death if I am not totally compliant) if he will supervise me through using Berberine, doing all the same tests as the research article, but even if he refuses, I will start on this herbal extract as soon as it arrives. I have ordered it from here - the only Australian supplier of Australian product I could find.

• Phellodendron - Berberine Extract from Herbosophy

Gymnema Sylvestre

Another herb used in many of the compounds is Gymnema. Like Berberine, it has many years of folklore behind it, and also a good body of scientific research. You will find a list of published medical articles on this plant here.

• Greenmedinfo - Gymnema-sylvestre

And for the Australians reading this, you can source the tea locally from here.

• Gymnema Sylvestre Tea from Tea Life

4 Adopting a low carbohydrate diet

This is a critical aspect to at least managing and potentially curing type 2 diabetes. It involves a lot of research into managing carbohydrates, and the information I have found so far is very confusing. I will place a link here when I have worked out what diet I am going to follow. Currently I am just doing low carb, but not very scientifically. So I will need more time on this one. Stay tuned.