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Less of some types of carbs, yes, but more other stuff too: https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
"Excess weight interferes with insulin's functions, and is the primary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Therefore the most effective treatment for type 2 diabetes is significant weight loss. However, the primary mode of treatment by physicians today is glucose-lowering medication. These medications give a false sense of security, providing implicit permission to continue the same disease-causing diet and lifestyle that allowed diabetes to develop in the first place. Many of these medications promote weight gain -- making the patient more diabetic; most importantly, these medications do not prevent diabetes from progressing and causing complications. ...
The key to diabetes reversal is superior nutrition and exercise. It may take a little extra effort, but avoiding the tragic complications of diabetes and a premature death is well worth it. My diabetes-reversal diet is vegetable-based with a high nutrient to calorie ratio, containing lots of greens and beans, other non-starchy vegetables, (such as mushrooms, eggplant, tomatoes and onions), raw nuts and seeds, and limited fresh fruit with no sweeteners or white flour products. When diabetics eat in this style, they lose their excess weight -- the cause of their diabetes -- quickly and easily, reducing or eliminating their need for medications and they also flood the body with disease-protective and healing micronutrients and phytochemicals that aid the body's recovery and self-repair mechanism."

For Type II diabetics, such a diet with weight loss brings the body's ability to respond to glucose in line with the remaining capacity to make it as needed. Exercise that builds more muscles and that is done when sugar is spiking can also help in managing glucose levels.

For Type I diabetics however, where the body can't produce much glucose at all if any, this improved diet/exercise is not enough, even if it can improve the situation some what as far as reducing complications. For Type I diabetics, this sort of breakthrough with stem cells, if it works, would be truly amazing.

Sometimes type I diabetics are really misdiagnosed type II, and vice versa, so there is a small level of confusion here where sometimes diet works when you would not expect etc..

BTW, vitamin D deficiency (from lack of natural sunlight) may be involved with the autoimmune response that could cause type I diabetes or perhaps make type II worse.

More from Furhman:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-...

More from others:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://www.fatsickandnearlydea...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/he...
http://articles.mercola.com/si...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea...
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/0...

The deeper issue is that our brains and microbiomes are adapted for a scarcity of refined carbs, and we struggle with the abundance of cheap ones:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"Scientific evidence suggests that the re-sensitization of taste nerves takes between 30 and 90 days of consistent exposure to less stimulating foods. This means

http://www.bluezones.com/programs/blue-zones-communities/albert-lea-mn/
http://www.bluezones.com/live-happier/thrive-centers/
"Our team of experts Dan Burden, Dr. Brian Wansink, and Dr. Leslie Lytle, empowered the community to make a few small lifestyle and environmental changes. Citizens improved in four areas: eating better, becoming more active, connecting with one another and finding a greater sense of purpose, and reaped the positive benefits of revitalizing their bodies, their spirits and their town.
The community made a variety of changes including adding workplace wellness policies, revised restaurant menu and vending machine offerings, community gardens, walking clubs, walking school buses and new hiking trails.
Community Successes
* Life expectancy increased an average of 3.1 years
* Participants lost a collective 12,000 pounds
* An average 21% drop in absenteeism by key employers
* City employees showed a 40% decrease in health care costs"

Yes, people are up against tough odds. But isn't the point of a "health care" as opposed to "sick care" system to help people succeed in implementing known effective solutions towards greater health?

Related resources on diabetes reversal with various slightly different approaches -- McDougal may be easier for many than Fuhrman as far as diet -- and medically suprvised fastign may work for others:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_hot_diabetes.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/20/5-steps-to-reversing-type-2-diabetes-and-insulin-resistance/
http://drbass.com/disease-cure.html
http://www.healthpromoting.com/condition/diabetes

All have similarities. By reducing foods with high glycemic loads, in the diet, while also reducing a person's body fat, and also improving the nutrient density of the food so the human body works better in general, and also getting adequate vitamin D and exercise which also help improve bodily functioning, most Type 2 diabetics can reach the point where they do not need supplemental insulin or other drugs because their needs for insulin have fallen to what their bodies can manage without aid.

But yes, it can be hard. Maybe the biggest part of the issue is that doctors are trained to write permission slips for unhealthy behavior (called prescriptions) instead of being trained in how to help patients change their lifestyle. How many hours of training does the typical MD have in lifestyle discussions? Especially in the ten minutes at most a typical doctor will spend with a typical patient. More than ten minutes, and a doctor's partners will yell at him or her.

And where is the sick care system's profit in curing diabetes? There is so much money to be made in glucose test strips, drug prescription renewals, insulin pump operations, amputations, and so on. There is a fundamental conflict of interest here.

Meanwhile, when a patient does not make the change, the doctor can just blame the subsequent health problems on genetics and the patient's lack of willpower to follow whatever advice was haphazardly given. Convenient for the well-paid doctor.

Contrast with the advice from the True North Health Center which includes training on how to cook healthier ood (as do other like McDougal's approach):
http://www.healthpromoting.com/
http://www.drfuhrm

But Drug Companies Object ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU
"Joel Fuhrman MD has cured hundreds of people of diabetes using diet and lifestyle. The American Diabetic Association wanted him to write about his work -- but then objected because their sponsor, Eli Lilly drug company, might feel threatened by an MD promoting a cure which could destroy the market for their diabetes medications. This is an excerpt from Dr. Furhman's presentation at the Healthy Lifestyle Expo 2007."

This is the cure, and it is free to look at:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
(Most diabetics need to take vitamin D and some other supplements too, probably.)

You can watch that in action in relation to other diseases, too:
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

It's sad that the non-profits that claim to be interested in helping people with a disease become invested in perpetuating that disease to perpetuate paying jobs for their staff etc..

We need something like a "basic income" to help move past that conflict-of-interest, where jobs only get done when they need doing.

You can look up multiple other cases where most type 2 is cured, and type 1 is greatly improved. Another example:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/index4.html

Look and you will find plenty more.

Anyway, you can take the red pill or the blue pill, Neo. Or better yet, no pill. :-)

I applaud your caution, but I lost about 50 pounds following that sort of advice, and feel a lot better, and have kept it off easily. His book is probably the most scientifically based one out there... YMMV.
"Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss"
http://books.google.com/books?id=CX8huSU0n8AC

Getting a good blender and making green smoothies helped a lot too.
http://greensmoothierevolution.com/

Dr. Fuhrman's approach can cure most type 2 diabetes too, but I doubt you will believe that either: :-)
"Dr. Fuhrman Cures Diabetes - But Drug Companies Object "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU

But that is more and more common knowledge, except among most doctors and CEOs of drug companies:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/index4.html

His approach can also reverse most heart disease... Although others can do that too, as well. Just Google on reverse heart disease.

Is Dr. Fuhrman's approach perfect? No, I think it could be improved in a couple of ways. For example, I think he is a bit low on Vitamin D and quite a bit low on iodine. Others on that:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
http://www.iodine4health.com/

Iodine especially is a potentially big issue because if you eliminate salt and dairy as he suggests, those are two major sources of iodine in the US diet, and you need to replace that with a multivitamin or eating seaweed or other things. If you were under his care, he would no doubt check for that, but for someone following his advice from a book (myself included) it is easy to mess up on iodine. I brought that to his attention through his forum but he was somewhat dismissive of it, sadly.

I also think Dr. Fuhrman could prioritize his approach a bit better, and also that there may be issues about metabolic types and individual biochemistry that may come into play. It's also not clear if salt is quite as bad as he says it is.

In general, I think he has done a great job, but no one knows everything about such a complex topic. And his active practice probably also limits his time for additional study. I also agree with you that financial conflicts (he sells branded food products, even though he gives some of the proceeds to nutritional research) muddy the water. But that is also a big issue in our society in general, and we need something like some mix of a gift economy or basic income or 3D printing and/or great central planning to move beyond it.

But overall, he's probably one of the best out there, after having read tons of stuff by different people in my own quest for health for myself and my family.

Dr. Andrew Weil has better holistic advice, but not quite so good nutrition advice. He is also more knowledgeable on herbal remedies:
http://www.drweil.com/

Dr. Mark Hyman probably has better overall advice about autism:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

We are in the midst of a revolution in nutritional knowledge and the connection to health, but sadly most people are in denial about it. And there are, as you say, so many vested interests and conflicts of interest that it is hard to know who to trust.

But as I quote here from Marcia Angell, the problem may be even worse in mainstream science:

I'm sorry, but there is a link between nutrition and many chronic diseases. And it's not just about "boosting" the immune system, but also about having a "smarter" immune system that knows better when to turn itself on and off in different situations.

  Other sources on curing type-2 diabetes with diet in a matter of days in most cases:
    http://www.rawfor30days.com/index4.html
    http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
If you study the science, you will see why. The combination of removal of refined carbohydrates, plus significant eventual weight loss, puts the body back into a range where it can produce enough insulin on its own (with less insulin resistance due to less fat) that the body can manage itself again (in most cases of type-2).

Dr. Fuhrman is not a "questionable source". He is a board certified family practice doctor, author of numerous books, has a published study to show his successes, and has been on numerous media shows, and so on. His work is probably the best scientifically footnoted recommendation of anyone in the field of health and nutrition.

His advice is easier to follow when you also read this:
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

As for Lupus or Herpes, I can only point to what he says:
    http://drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
"As long as you are still breathing, it is still possible to improve your health with improvements in lifestyle and nutrition. It is typical for people to see a variety of great changes when they adopt the high, nutrient diet-style which I recommend. Besides reaching an ideal weight and lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, other problems are resolved too. For example, it is common for those with attacks of recurrent herpes to stop experiencing attacks. Those with indigestion and reflux don’t need their acid-suppression therapy anymore. People stop getting hemmorhoids. Their body odor improves. They have better stamina and think more clearly, and their skin tone and color improves."

If you don't want to explore that, well, that's certainly your choice. There is a lot of misinformation and conflict of interest out there and it is hard to wade through it. And no one can guarantee results.

But the logic is there -- immune system health is effected by things like vitamin D status and vegetable and fruit consumption (and probiotics and good sleep and humor and so on). That fact is undeniable based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, even with most scientific money going in to prove magic bullet drugs and ignoring basic nutrition.

Nutrition matters. Other things matter as well, of course.

If you do even the tiniest bit of research yourself, you will see the connection.
http://www.google.com/search?q=immune+system+nutrition

As I've said before, unfortunately, a focus on magic bullets often distracts us from the basics. And the meat, dairy, processed corn, and big pharma companies are in no hurry to tell us any different (even though each can sometimes be part of a healthy life etc.).

By the way, two counter links:
http://open.salon.com/blog/rahul_k_parikh/2009/09/06/huffington_post_health_watch_mark_hymans_faux_autism_cure
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/dr_mark_hyman_mangles_autism_science_on-.php

But, while I agree with the dangers of chelation (I think appropriate iodine supplementation might be safer and as effective), in general, I feel Mark Hyman is right about the big picture.

The problem is that in the USA, dermatologists and cosmetics companies have scared everyone about being in the sun, which along with and indoors lifestyle have led to vitamin D deficiency (which is involved in dealing with heavy metals). And with the way the meat, dairy, and processed/refined food industries have captured the US FDA, we have a crazy food pyramid that contributes to most people in the USA getting about half their calories from animal products and about the other half from refined and processed foods, with less than 10% percent of calories from fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds. We need to turn that around so less than 10% of calories comes from animal product and refined/processed foods, and 90% of calories comes from whole plant foods.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Unfortunately, because of the "Pleasure Trap", people have a hard time breaking out of that bondage to deadly foods and thus come up with endless rationalizations for why they are not harming us:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm

And we've been told for so long by so many people to avoid the sun (whether for health or energy), it's hard to think it is important. A little story about that is at the end of this:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2008-october.shtml
"Then, new priests of science and medicine, told the people the Sun God was only a star, one of trillions, nothing special. Great temples called hospitals and research institutes arose, which admitted only filtered sunlight and where the people offered sacrifices to the gods of science and medicine, sacrifices that enriched the new priests. Then, thirty years ago, the new priests of dermatology told the people to shun the Sun God. "Banish her from your lives", they said, "She is evil." The people listened to the new priests and kept their pregnant women out of the Sun God's warmth, and told their children she was wicked. The people stayed inside, their children with them and traveled behind glass in their cars and wore sunblock and sunhats to keep the Sun God away. The Sun God grew vengeful...."

Look, we've been told for decades that type 2 diabetes in incurable, when it is in most cases cured within a week of a better diet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
Above is a link on how to get past the "pleasure trap" keeping people from changing their diet for the better and readjusting their tastes to healthy food.

We've been told heart disease and cancer are just inheritable and "genetic", when most of that is

But only completely for type 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU
See also: http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/diabetes.aspx

Type 1 diabetics still need to take insulin, but can take less and have less complications. So, this idea from the article might eventually help them.

From that link: "John ... was a 22 year old college graduate with Type 1 diabetes since the age of 6. He was five foot, eight inches tall and weighed 190 pounds. He was taking a total of 70 units of insulin daily. He was referred to my office by his family physician as he was having swings in his glucose levels, too high at times and at other times dangerously low. He also wanted to learn more about nutrition to improve his health and reduce his future risks from having diabetes. I was impressed by his intelligence and desire to change his eating habits to better his health. We spent lots of time discussing the typical problems that befall most diabetics, and I explained to him that using 70 units of insulin a day was part of the problem. I explained that if he follows my recommended diet-style he will stabilize his weight at about 145 pounds and he will only require about 30 units of insulin a day. With this lower level of insulin, to mimic the amount of insulin a non-diabetic makes in the pancreas, he can have a life without the typical health issues that befall diabetics. We cut his nighttime insulin dose down by ten units and his mealtime insulin from 10 to 6 as he began the diet. Over the next two weeks we gradually tapered his insulin and found that he only needed 20 units of Lantus insulin at bedtime and 4 units before each meal for a total of 32 units a day. Almost immediately, with my dietary recommendations, his sugars were running in the favorable range, and he no longer experienced dangerous drops in his blood sugar. He had lost 13 pounds over the first month and by month three weighed 167, a loss of 23 pounds. He was excited about what he had learned and was more hopeful about his life while living with his diabetes. I am convinced, that with the Eat To Live or Eat For Health diet-style, those with Type 1 diabetes can have a long and disease-free life. I feel it is imperative that all Type 1 diabetics learn about this life, saving approach."

Key there for type 1 diabetics is reducing complications, even if they still take diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes may also be related to vitamin D deficiency in utero and early life.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18846317
http://www.google.com/custom?q=diabetes&sitesearch=vitamindcouncil.org

If you have type 2 diabetes, you can most likely, within weeks under Dr. Fuhrman's plan, be throwing your insulin away forever (at least, based on what he writes). I know you may find this hard to believe. The key idea there is to lose weight to reduce insulin resistance, and to eliminate refined carbs to reduce insulin needs, and to improve your body's general health with more phytonutrients, and so bring the need for insulin within the remaining capacity of your body. In most cases of type 2 diabetes this should be enough to eliminate the need for any medications. Even if you remained on medications, the risk of complications would go way down and the quality of your life would go way up.

See also Raw For Thirty (though Dr. Fuhrman's approach is more comprehensive and not all raw for some good reasons):
http://www.rawfor30days.com/

Some people think they have type 1 diabetes because they have been misdiagnosed and are really type 2 and presumably 100% curable. I guess the opposite may be true, too, sadly. In any case, you never know for sure till you try.

I am following the Eat to Live plan for other reasons (though not

I saw a British video about obesity where they took an obese woman who claimed to have tried every diet and to have a slow metabolism, and they actually tested her in a hospital with a special test for that (respiration rate), and she had an average metabolism.

As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says inhis book "Eat To Live", tryng to control portion size breaks down eventually because no one can deny themselves foods they crave forever.

What works, reliably, is to switch ot a diet emphasizing vegetables fruits, and beans, where your stomach fills up with only 200 to 400 caloires of nutrient-dense plant matter, as opposed to, say, 3500 calories to fill your stomach with essentially phytonutrient-deficient cheese.

You may also need specific supplements, like vitamin D and DHA and B12 and some others.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

See Dr. Fuhrmans' presentation:
    "Nutrient Density is the Key to Good health "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGgeGHU1Bs

Or also:
    "Eat For Health"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw

Such a diet can cure most Type 2 diabetes too in a few weeks:
"Dr. Fuhrman Cures Diabetes - But Drug Companies Object "
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU

And he is not the only one who says that:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/

And Herbet Shelton said it decades ago.

Most medical intervention in industrialized countries is unneeded and just covers up the symptoms of malnutrition (not lack of calories, but lack of phytonutrients and fiber). There are of course some other lifestyle issues (smoking, stess, lack of sleep, lack of exercise) as well as exposure to human-made toxins, so diet is not everything. But diet is still a really big thing for preventing (or in some cases, treating) chronic disease like much heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, and others.

The problem is, there is very little profit in telling people to eat more vegetables, get enough vitamin D, exercise more, and so on. The money is in things like (totally unneeded in most cases it turns out) heart operations like angioplasty for conditions more safely and more effectively treated with dietary changes.

Another part of the puzzle:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/the-pleasure-trap

So you are right to suggest the possibility there is a broad social problem, with profits to be had in harming people or endlessly treating them, but little profits to be had in prevention or cure. With more grassroots information, hopefully we can move past this medical problem of US malnutrition and free up a lot of resources and create a lot of positive energy to then address other unmet social needs.