“There is abundant evidence,” writes medical doctor and author Neal Barnard, “that people with even long-standing diabetes can improve their health dramatically—and practically reverse their condition.” This statement stands in stark contrast to the drug-dependent “cure” promoted by multinational pharmaceutical companies, those corporations profiting from millions of people world-wide who are dependent on insulin for the rest of their lives.

But insulin-dependency is not a cure, nor is it, according to some medical doctors, even a necessity. Even though conventional medicine teaches that a diabetic will always need medication, there are also many MDs who maintain that diabetes can be reversed. According to Dr. Gabriel Cousens, author of There is a Cure for Diabetes, the disease can be reversed with a healthy diet of fresh vegetable juices, plant-based diet, yoga, meditation, and exercise.

This global pandemic, effecting more than 30 million people in the US alone, does not have to be a slow death sentence, writes Dr Cousens. With the help of natural therapies, diabetics can be spared of the pain and agony of unnecessary suffering, which often includes blindness, obesity, kidney failure, and premature death.

How common is diabetes today? A disease that was nearly unknown only 50 years ago is now one of the leading causes of death in America. The main reason for this pandemic is a sedentary lifestyle and bad dietary habits—too much sugar, refined foods, animal fat and too few fruits and vegetables and too little exercise. It’s that simple, according to many doctors today.

Here are a few more hard facts about diabetes. From 2010 to 2012, three million more people were diagnosed with diabetes. Even more disturbingly, in 2012, 86 million Americans aged 20 and older were considered pre-diabetic; up from 79 million in 2010.

According to Dr. Cousens there is no one pill you can take to cure diabetes. Both the cause and the cure for diabetes is found in our lifestyle, he claims, in the food we eat and in the way we conduct our lives. Even though many people are more genetically predisposed to diabetes nobody need to suffer needlessly, wholistic medical doctors claim that healthy food and good living can become the cure, that  our lifestyle can become the best preventive medicine.

So, what kind of a diet and lifestyle are we talking about? A diet high in nutrient rich foods and low in refined carbohydrates and refined sugars; a diet rich in plants and low or non-existent in animal fats; a lifestyle low in stress and high on relaxation, yoga and meditation; a lifestyle low on watching TV and high on outdoor activities and exercise.

Diabetes is a modern disease. It is largely nonexistent in tribal cultures but has reached pandemic proportions with the growing rise in the consumption of sugar, animal fats, and refined carbohydrate foods in Western culture in the last 50 years.

And now we are also exporting this disease, together with our candy bars and potato chips, to other cultures across the globe.

But this unhealthy trend can be reversed by lifestyle intervention: by reversing our diet to the way we used to live before: high on plants and low on animal fats. And if you want to know more about the details about that kind of a diet and lifestyle, please join one of the programs at the Prama Wellness Center.

P.S. This article was written for informational purposes only and is not in any ways intended as a cure or to give medical advice. If you think you may have diabetes or any other disease, please consult your medical doctor.