“You can’t just take a vitamin and call it a day. If only health were that easy!” There used to be a compelling movement to encourage people to take B-vitamin supplements to manage homocysteine levels. When I first got diagnosed with diabetes in 2003, I was a fan of the book The Heart Revolution: The Extraordinary ..read more

The stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are defined by ranges of eGFR, a calculated number based on serum (blood) creatinine test results. Of course, the progression of CKD is continuous, but certain healthcare protocols are set based on the discrete stages of CKD, particularly at stage 4 when eGFR drops below 30.  In this ..read more

I started this blog six years ago to document my journey with Type 2 diabetes and fasting.  I took a bit of a break from the blogging since 2019 when my fasting doctor told me that despite doing “everything right” on that program, that my case of diabetes was likely too advanced to solve with ..read more

There has been a long-standing belief that consuming too much sugar was the cause of Type 2 diabetes and that treating diabetes was about controlling blood sugar.  Makes sense, right?  Well, it’s more complicated. Recent research has now provided evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction (previously covered on this blog) — involving fats, not glucose — may be to blame for the inflammation which causes type 2 diabetes! Warning: In no means does this post advocate any stoppage of treatment for blood glucose control.  The recent research just reveals that there is more to the st ..read more

Fasting, diabetes, and innovations in health were just some of the topics I covered during my visit on the #PopHealth podcast titled “Personal and Organizational Well-being.” Here are the links to the podcast on the various platforms: SoundCloud Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher For those who haven’t listened to the #PopHealth show before, here is the description: This show is about all things population health. What is population health? It is about making populations and groups healthy. If you are someone who feels accountable or responsible for other people and their health ..read more

I’m now turning the corner of this second round at the Buchinger Wilhelmi fasting clinic here on Germany.  Now that I’ve been through 26 days of fasting this time around, “re-elementation” or “refeeding” is now the most important part.  The body has torn down the old, bad stuff through fasting.  I’m down over 20 pounds (spreadsheet here).  Now it is time to rebuild but with the right foods! I know from experience that this rebuilding is the hardest part.  After 4 days of eating foods provided by the clinic, the hard part is coming home and staying very healthy for the ..read more

Yes!  You can do a fasting program and still exercise! There are different schools of thought with respect to fasting.  On one extreme is pure water fasting, such as practiced at Goryachinsk on Lake Baikal in Siberia.  In this program, exercise is not compulsory. Otto Buchinger, on the other hand, created his fasting program 100 years ago with the thought of providing patients a small calorie intake but augmenting with daily walks as exercise.  The idea behind providing of limited food (250 calories per day) with exercise is to make fasting more accessible, with fewer ..read more

I have known for quite some time that my system just wasn’t totally efficient, as I could eat an above average amount of food and not gain weight.  While many might envy having this problem, my unusually high metabolic rate was actually a bad sign. Many (pretty old!) studies have shown that Type 2 diabetics actually have a higher resting metabolic rate than non-diabetics and the high metabolic rate is associated with the progression of the disease. Examples: Metabolic factors contributing to increased resting metabolic rate and decreased insulin-induced thermogenesis during the developme ..read more

Life got in the way, and this is my first blog post of 2019. I’m writing this post on a return visit to the Buchinger-Wilhelmi fasting clinic in Germany. The clinic provides an excellent venue for a mental “reset” to capture thoughts and reflect back on life outside of the day-to-day! Returned to share with family The primary motivation for returning to the clinic was actually to share the fasting experience with our college-age daughters. Fasting is a centuries-old tradition (often accompanied with religiosity) which modern American society has stifled. I’m currently at the clinic in Germany ..read more

A good friend just pointed me to an interesting article from the New York Times that came out Christmas Eve Day. It was based on a study out of Emory University in Atlanta that showed higher all-cause mortality associated with HDL levels above 80!  Below is a screen capture from the press conference where the study results were presented showing “U curve” associated with adverse events with both low HDL (<40 mg/DL) and very high HDL (>80 mg/DL). Risks of mortality are higher with very low AND very high levels of HDL The authors acknowledge some limitations of the study.  The st ..read more