 Why are macrobiotic diets apparently so effective of reducing blood sugar levels and diabetes within just a few weeks' time? Because the diet is centered around whole grains, brown rice, barley, and millet, maybe the high fiber intake is improving the gut microbiome, the friendly flora, and the colons of diabetics, and that's leading to reduction in insulin resistance? Or maybe it's because it also has lots of vegetables. Maybe it's kind of correcting some kind of low-grade acidosis from the high levels of animal protein in their regular diets? Regardless, this was after just 21 days. Can macrobiotic diets also help with longer-term blood sugar control? How about a six-month dietary intervention with wildly out-of-control blood sugars? Hemoglobin A1C offers a sense of one's average blood sugars over the previous few months, so an A1C level of five would mean over the last few months your blood sugars have been double digits most of the time. In your sugars have been normal, healthy, non-diabetic. But an A1C of like six is pre-diabetes territory, and six and a half can be a sign of full-blown diabetes. But under seven is considered controlled diabetes. That's what diabetics are striving towards with pills and insulin injections, and anything over seven is considered out-of-control diabetes. The average A1C level in the macrobiotic diet study started out off the charts at 12.6, meaning for months they'd been averaging blood sugars in the 300s despite all being on insulin injections. But then they were placed on the so-called MAPI2 diet, a strictly plant-based, macrobiotic-style diet centered around whole grains, vegetables, and beans, with some sesame seeds and green tea. What happened? A1C levels started out with a wildly out-of-control diabetic 12.6 despite daily insulin injections, and since six months eating that diet ended up averaging a non-diabetic 5.7. And are you ready for this? That was after they all were able to eliminate their insulin. They went from 100% on insulin without a controlled diabetes to 0% on insulin, averaging non-diabetic blood sugars. That's the power of plants. And three-quarters were off all their diabetes medications completely in just six months' time. And what are the side effects? How about LDL cholesterol dropping 20%, triglycerides dropping nearly 40%, although of course anyone starting a strictly plant-based diet must ensure a regular, reliable source of vitamin B12? All we need now is a randomized controlled trial, and here it is, type 2 diabetics are randomized to the macrobiotic diet versus the recommended, American Diabetes Association type diet. So here's an example of a typical day on the macrobiotic diet. A savory whole grain cake for breakfast with green tea with brown rice sesame balls for a snack, lunch was a vegetable millet soup and a brown rice salad with lots of vegetable sides, and at zuki beans, more whole grain snacks, and a dinner similar to lunch, vegetable barley soup, lots of vegetables, chickpeas, green tea throughout the day. Whereas the more standard diabetic diet group got a day like this, low-fat milk, whole wheat bread, kind of a Mediterranean lunch with vegetables and beans, fruit for a snack, and a bean and vegetable soup, whole grain bread, a Gretti is like a green leafy vegetable, and baked fish. I have to say, that's a pretty healthy controlled diet. I mean, they could have compared it to some trashy diet, but they wanted to be like, look, this is what the diabetes group say is best, so let's stack our diet against theirs. Okay, so what happened? The macrobotic diet won out on every measure of blood sugar control. Check out these numbers. They all started out with fasting blood sugars in the 120s. That's bad, but they were, after all, diabetics. Normal fasting blood sugars, like when you wake up in the morning before breakfast, should be at least down in the double digits, under 100. When they put people on this relatively healthy diabetes association diet, their blood sugars got better over the three-week study from the 120s down into the one teens, so that's like the best the official diabetes-recommended diets can do. Compare that to an isocaloric macrobotic diet, meaning the same number of calories. This is what the macrobotic diet did, better within days and hitting normal fasting blood sugars within a week. 100% of those on the macrobotic diet got down to at least under 110, whereas less than half of those on the diabetes diet did. And this was on fewer drugs. In the control group, one person was able to reduce their oral hypoglycemic medications, whereas five of the seven on such drugs in the macrobotic group had to stop taking them. Otherwise, their blood sugars would have fallen too low, so better results on fewer drugs. That's the power of a really healthy diet. And just as an aside, what a poke in the eye with a sharp stick this study was to the low carb crowd. I mean, look at this. They took diabetics and put them on a 73% carbohydrate diet, adding 100 grams of carbs to their daily diet, and in the form of grains. And what happened? Did their blood sugar skyrocket out of control? No, they got better, significantly better in a matter of days, with average fasting blood sugar starting out at 129, falling to 95, and holy moly, look at their LDL cholesterol down to 62 and nearly 48% drop in three weeks.