Health COMMENT

THE story of Geoff Whitington and his sons is a moving one, particularly for me. My father died at 74 of a diabetes-related illness and it’s a terrible shame that I didn’t know when I was younger what I know now, because I could have done something about it.

The official advice was to stick to a low-fat diet, and it just didn’t work. I also don’t think my dad took his diabetes seriously. He thought taking pills was enough.

The Whitingtons were able to transform Geoff’s life. He was quite far gone by the time they started, even looking at lower-limb amputation.

His transformation – reversing his diabetes and losing six stone – was on a huge scale but even modest levels of weight loss, 6lb say, can make a difference.

There is a fatalism among medical professionals about weight loss and a widespread belief that diets don’t work. I think this is misplaced. Yes, there are terrible diets out there but there are also those with a decent track record.

The low-fat diet, which was and still seems to be the mainstay of dietary advice, is not one of them. In long-term trials, it loses out hands down to the ‘Mediterranean diet’ – low in sugar, low in refined carbs and high in healthy fats from olive oil, nuts and fish. And it’s not just about weight loss and diabetes but other important health measures such as the risk of developing heart disease.

Support is crucial as going it alone is miserable and hard.

Some people who do the Blood Sugar Diet prefer a more gradual 5:2 approach and don’t do 800 calories all the time. Others just switch to a Mediterranean diet and that helps. The important thing is to cut out rapidly digestible refined carbs – those that quickly translate into sugar in the gut, such as white bread and white rice – and, of course, sugar itself. Improving blood sugar levels is not just about losing weight and improving diabetes, but a whole host of other health issues.