Three ways to prevent diabetes | Professor Naveed Sattar

The biggest myth I myself fell victim to: Only 'fat' people are in danger. Couldn't have been wronger (at 1.83m, 74 kg, mediterranian-ish diet for decades), and had to learn it the hard way when my feet started freezing and going semi-numb in mid-September. RAYNAUD Syndrome and diabetes diagnosis! No clues from the GPs as to the causes. Had to find out the dozen or so possible reasons from the NHS website and then examine where I fell short: 1.) Only ca. 6 hrs sleep and 2) sedentary body position for most of the day (for 15 years)! What I was MSSING in this talk was that starch (white pasta & rice gets also metabolised into sugar) can be a much worse a culprit than sugar out of the pack to spice one's tea/coffee. (Just cut out sweet bottled beverages). Without denouncing self-made rhubarb/damson cakes I rid myself of T2D within 4 years. BUT, the damages T2D did, they stayed (peripheral neuropathies). DON'T GO THERE.

I went low carb and remitted my diabetes. Without even trying I lost 25% of my weight (5', mid 60s F, went from 80kg down to 60kg) and now weigh what I did in the mid 1980s before I had children.

One of the best Zoe podcasts so far - bring back Dr Sattar more often!

Many of us mistaking eating a lot of fruits as we think they are good. BUT fructose from fruits is as bad as sugar. Watch out

Professor Sattar clearly has a very practical, realistic approach to helping people deal with this brewing epidemic. Very refreshing compared to some other “trendy”, extreme diet restricting approaches & their associated YouTube “gurus”. When you witness the health condition of many people (including the young) in some areas of Britain, moderate, step-by-step personal lifestyle changes may be the best tactic. Radical methods could well be short-lived, costly & unfeasible given an individual’s actual life circumstances.

That was a great overview of T2 diabetes. Though exercise and increased muscle mass was discussed, changes to diet was not. This was a missing link, and especially from a South Asian doc, an ethnicity that has a lot of rice and wheat flatbreads. Great interview anyway.

Was the professor specifically asked not to comment on insulin resistance or why we get fat? I would’ve loved to hear his take on whether we get fat because we are insulin resistance, or become insulin resistant because we get fat (and then explain why we get fat). What he said was very interesting but ultimately a bit unsatisfying because of what was not said.

Very helpful podcast. I wish there is a more straightforward summary of the 3 ways to prevent diabetics. Here is my attempt: 1. Control/reduce weight or the fat especially at the belly, by changing and controlling diet; 2. Exercise, especially to increase muscle mass; 3. Sleep well (by reducing stress); Please help to improve the summary.

It would be great if you could get Prof. Roy Taylor on your podcast and /or the GP and T2DM guru Dr. David Unwin and his wife.

Brilliant. One of the best episodes yet. Professor Sattar is a pleasure to listen to, with sensible, non panic-inducing suggestions.

Unbelievably, there was no mention of Intermittent Fasting as a powerful tool. Bring on the real expert. Dr. Jason Fung.

I'm surprised you're not talking about the importance of a fasting insulin along with the HbA1c. You can have a normal A1c while your insulin level is slowly creeping up into the abnormal level indicating insulin resistance which is the underlying disease that presents as diabetes. Plus, with the fasting insulin you can calculate HOMA-IR, a useful measure of how insulin resistant you are.

I have pcos so have an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease so I have watched my weight for the last 30 years but now going through the menopause which increases the risk further. Hbiac comes back as normal but I have always put weight on around the middle so am apple shape (and only 5ft 2in) and never on hips or thighs. During my 2 weeks of glucose monitoring on Zoe it showed mine raises to above 9, a few things seemed to increase it - humus being one which was a shock which is part of the reason for joining Zoe to try and reduce my waist (which is 39 inches currently), white bread (don't tend to eat bread generally) and also mashed potato increased it to over 8.5 as well. Some things are obvious, some are not so I'm hopeful the Zoe program will help as I think I am potentially insulin resistant (which is common in pcos) but my GP will not do a OGTT but has recommended I try wegovy injections (UK). I exercise and do weights 4-5 times a week which I started doing regularly almost 2 years ago, I fast most days as well so only eat 2 meals a day. Good podcast to watch, will be interesting to see if Zoe helps me .....

Doesn't answer why people are getting fatter. Ultra processed foods and processes carbs.

Clearly, Naveed follows Professor Taylor’s paradigm that diabetes is all about weight. The Direct Trial does show a clear association between weight and Diabetes, however, as he stated, it only works in 40% of cases in 12 months. Therefore, this can’t be the ‘only’ factor. Shame that hyperinsulinemia wasn’t discussed. This is also a very clear driver of pre diabetes or diabetes (via Insulin Resistance). Equally, why should it be ‘inevitable’ that we will get diabetes? I would highly implore people not to listen to any of this type of advice and to simply test for themselves. Have your Shredded Wheat (a popular UK breakfast cereal) for breakfast and see what happens. If your body is unable to metabolize it easily, then you have a problem and you should probably think twice about having it again. The same applies to any carbohydrate rich food - that ‘whole meal bread’ you’re having instead of white might not be making much of a difference. Also, we need to be careful about trying to put things as inevitable. For example, most of my South Asian colleagues eat an almost frightening amount of carbohydrate. I have many ‘pure veg’ friends who eat rice, with bread, with beans, with sugar etc. Saying that it is their genetics that drives weight gain is highly questionable. Sure, genetics plays a role, however, fundamentally if we are piling to much into the system, then we’ll gain weight. I ‘reversed’ type 2 diabetes over 10 years ago without significant weight loss. In fact, the weight loss happened gradually over 5 or so years whereas the diabetes reversal was within a few months (e.g. A1C from 12.8 down to 4.8). I did this by simply finger prick testing the impact of different meals on my blood sugar and adjusting my diet to avoid anything that raised it excessively (e.g. rice, noodles, pasta etc.)

This Jonathan Wolf guy is a very, very good interviewer. I love the way he recaps things and gets clarification on the most important points. This video is one of the best summaries on this subject that I have ever seen. A lot of those points we already know in one way or the other, but here they are explained in such a clear way.

Thanks for this! Great interview. Zoe keeps improving my knowledge of Type 2 and I've reduced my HBA1C to 45 - now fighting to keep it there or reduce it. Pretty radical dietary changes (NOT dieting) and pushing my little dog Charlie harder (he loves it) have helped no end.

Simply change your lifestyle!It's all about the type of food you eat.Cut out Starchy foods eg. BREAD,POTATOES,RICE,PASTA ETC.CUT OUT PROCESSED FOOD.CUT DOWN THE CARBS .Eat less or no sugar.Eat fatty meat and real food.Dont over exercise.They didn't once mention what cause the Fat excess and how to combat it.Sugar in all the food is the main reason.SUGAR IS TOXIC.TRY A KETO Life Style.❤

I used to have a really healthy lifestyle: no upfs, plenty of exercise etc.; then I got osteoarthritis in the hip, thyroid going crazy, chronic inflammation, insomnia linked to pain and all this post menopausal . My diet has remained the same, but weight has ballooned. The good news is I get a hip replacement very soon, I’m finally getting GP help on thyroid, so hopefully, I can start getting back to my old self. Lifestyle “choices” are not always the choice we would like.

I agree people who walk their dogs have so much advantage on mental and body health. 😊 I fostered a dog once and I noticed that right away 😮