Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Retrospective #472: Is the Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy Credible?


A friend of 40+ years, who used to follow my blog, thenutritiondebate.com, recently emailed me to ask, “Does the Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy have any credibility?” I’d never heard of Vedda before so I looked it up. It’s a Sri-Lanka herbal product and diet program that’s being promoted here (in the U. S.) in a new book.
The website Contra Health Scam says the Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy is a scam. Quoting from their conclusion, “Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy is nothing but a well-produced scam, complete with paid actors, stock photos, stock videos, twisted scientific studies and outright lies.” So, I sent the link to my friend and suggested instead that he look up the Virta Health program (note the clever name similarity?) for managing his weight and blood sugar.
My friend thanked me and later emailed me, “The Keto rage sure evidences your research! The weight loss results are phenomenal. This is totally counter to the food pyramid we grew up with, or Michelle Obama’s new school she tried to promote.” I replied, “Yes, that’s all true,” and asked if he would like to be added back to my distribution list.” He replied, “Yes, I am definitely still struggling to get to my goal weight. Thanks.”
Later, while working in the garden I got to thinking about this “conversation.” I found it very depressing. I’ve been proselytizing about how to manage weight and blood sugar for about ten years and have written almost 500 columns (472 published with this one), and even my long-time friends (and my own wife!) pay no attention to me. How frustrating is that? So, I told my wife about the conversation and she said, “You have no bona fides.”
I understood what she meant, of course. I’m not a medical doctor or “certified diabetes educator.” But, with exasperation, I replied, I have personally lost 170 pounds (and maintained most of the loss) BY DIET ALONE, WITHOUT EXERCISE, AND WITHOUT HUNGER. Not only that but I HAVE TURNED MY DIABETES HEALTH AROUND, FROM A PROGRESSIVELY WORSENING DISEASE TO THE POINT WHERE, FROM A CLINICAL STANDPOINT, I AM “CURED,” AND IN COMPLETE REMISSION.
In addition, my lipid (cholesterol) profile is also completely reversed, I’m no longer on a statin, my blood pressure is “normal” (with meds), and my “chronic systemic inflammation” non-existent (hsCRP ≤1.0). I am so full of energy and so much healthier and happier than I was 18 years ago WHEN MY DOCTOR FIRST SUGGESTED I TRY A VERY LOW CARB DIET to lose weight. He didn’t call it LCHF or Keto, but that is what is was and IT WORKS!
So, perhaps, you’re thinking, my personal example only works for me. “You’re not like other people,” my wife says – until your long-time friend reads about “the Keto rage” with “weight loss results [that] are phenomenal.” And then you realize that it’s “totally counter to the food pyramid we grew up with,” the one our government has been promoting for more than half a century – a “food pyramid” that is completely turned upside down. Completely wrong!
My wife said I should be grateful that my friend has come back into the fold. I said I was, but still, I was stunned at the resistance of some people…by which I mean most people, not my friend in particular…to rational change. We just don’t want to change, until perhaps we reach a tipping point in our personal life. For me it was the shock of learning, when I weighed myself on a commercial scale, that I weighed 375 pounds. My doctor’s scale only went to 350. I thought I was going to die. I looked around and I didn’t see any really fat, old people. I didn’t want to die.
What will it take for you? What combination of fear, courage, and a glimmer of a chance that changing your diet could save your life? That it might be easy to lose weight and improve all the markers associated with morbidity and death?
What will it take for you to realize you became overweight because of what you ate? To realize the way to reverse that condition is to change what you eat to eat in a way “totally counter to the food pyramid we all grew up with,” that we’ve been following our whole lives. I food pyramid that got us into this mess in the first place. Think about it. If that’s what it takes, then maybe you’ll become a follower too, and we can grow old together…

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