Photo:PETA

Prothetist Matt Mullins sees a lot of diabetics in his line of work–and they all eat meat.

The man sitting in my office had just undergone his third amputation in as many years. First, doctors amputated his right foot after a blister refused to heal and gangrene set in. Then, they cut off the leg just below the knee. Now, he had graduated to “AK” (above the knee). He was losing his leg, inch by inch.

As someone who makes artificial limbs for a living, I see a lot of tragedy: children who have lost limbs to cancer, motorcycle accident victims, farmers who’ve lost arms in agricultural machinery. But perhaps the most tragic are the diabetics who’ve essentially cut off their own legs with a knife and fork.

Death By 1,000 Cuts
Most of my patients have spent a lifetime eating the typical Western diet based on meat and dairy products. Years of chowing down on burgers, ice cream and chicken have left them overweight and suffering from type 2 or “adult-onset” diabetes, which afflicts 90 to 95 percent of diabetics. This form of diabetes usually appears after age 40, although it is starting to be found among teens and children. It is linked to obesity and inactivity—in other words, sitting on your duff and eating bad stuff.

Diabetes is an epidemic. Eighteen million North Americans and 1.4 million Britons have diabetes, and more than 200,000 people in the U.S. die each year from diabetes-related causes.

Diabetes can cause heart disease, strokes, blindness, kidney failure and pneumonia. It also leads to nerve damage and poor circulation in the feet and legs, which is where

I come in. Limited blood flow makes it hard for sores and infections to heal and can ultimately lead to amputation of a toe, foot or leg. About 82,000 people have diabetes-related leg and foot amputations each year. Fifty percent of all amputations occur in people with diabetes. Most diabetic amputees don’t live long—the majority of my patients are dead within nine years of their first amputation.

Diabetes Can Be Reversed!
Old-fashioned diets for diabetics were based on the theory that, because diabetics have high blood sugar levels, sugar and starch consumption should be curbed. But recent studies indicate that fat is a far bigger culprit in impairing insulin’s function and that blood sugar levels are actually under better control on diets that are high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat.
In studies using a very low-fat, plant-based diet, along with regular walking, cycling or other exercise, 90 percent of people with adult-onset diabetes using oral medications were able to stop them in less than a month. Of those who had been taking insulin, 75 percent no longer needed it. In one study that used a vegan diet without added vegetable oils, but did not recommend any exercise program at all, patients’ blood sugar still dropped 54 points on a vegan diet. Although patients weren’t trying to cut back on calories, they lost an average of 16 pounds during the three-month study.

Dietary changes can help cut back on the amount of insulin needed—or eliminate it altogether in some cases—and minimize complications. I’ve seen the “complications” of diabetes firsthand and I want to keep my legs, which is why I’m a vegetarian.

Stay on Your Feet and out of My Office
Stop eating meat, dairy products and eggs. In my 11 years of practice, I have never had to make a prosthetic leg for a vegan.

These tips could save your life—and limbs

• Eliminate all animal products, including dairy products which have been linked to juvenile diabetes. • Eat fiber-rich whole grains, veggies, fruits and legumes—fiber keeps the absorption of sugar slow and steady. • Eat lots of complex carbohydrates (the starchy part of beans, grains and vegetables). During digestion, these sugars gradually come apart and pass into the blood a bit at a time, rather than all at once as with table sugar, candy bars, and other sweets. • Keep oils and fat to a minimum—fat in the blood and excess body fat impair insulin’s action. • Get exercise, which helps increase circulation.

The Dairy/Diabetes Connection

Some children’s bodies reject cow’s milk protein as a foreign substance and produce high levels of antibodies to fend off this “invader.” Unfortunately, these antibodies also destroy the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas, leading to juvenile (insulin-dependent) diabetes. A study of children in 40 countries found that the higher the consumption of cow’s milk and other animal products, the greater the chance of developing diabetes. Conversely, children who consumed a largely vegetarian diet had a much lower incidence of diabetes. In 1994, an American Academy of Pediatrics panel concluded that evidence from more than 90 studies showed that cow’s milk may be linked to diabetes in some children.