Going Vegan Could Help Ease Diabetes Pain

By Janice Neumann (Reuters Health) - A low-fat vegan diet may help people with type 2 diabetes reduce physical pain related to the condition, suggests a small new study. "This new study gives a ray of hope for a condition where there are no other good treatments," said Dr. Neal Barnard, the study's lead author and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a non-profit organization that promotes a vegan diet, preventive medicine, and alternatives to animal research. Most people with type 2 diabetes will develop peripheral diabetic neuropathy, the researchers write in Nutrition and Diabetes. People with the condition may feel pain, burning and numbness in their body's extremities. "For an individual patient, it can be miserable and also depressing because there are no good treatments and it just gets worse and worse," said Barnard, who is also affiliated with the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. "By setting aside animal products and oily foods, you can become healthier, and your pain can diminish and perhaps even go away," he told Reuters Health in an email. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes and is often linked to obesity. In type 2 diabetes, the body's cells are resistant to the hormone insulin, or the body doesn't make enough...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news