Overcoming Diabetes without Drugs

A few years ago, First Lady, Michele Obama, began the Let’s Move Campaign targeting children that appeared on the path to obesity, which is one of the main causes of diabetes.  “Obese children face an increased risk of adult obesity and all the health risks that come with it” - heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and more.  www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/10/31/presidential-proclamation-national-diabetes-month-2013

The Presidential Proclamation deeming November as National Diabetes Month contained alarming statistics, as well as an encouragement to choose better lifestyles to stave off the disease.  It is estimated that over 25 million Americans are living with diabetes and the symptoms associated with it. And the costs to prevent and treat both it and its impact on families and society are staggering; an estimated $245 billion in direct and indirect costs.

Is it possible to beat the disease without drugs or high costs?  DeWayne McCulley, an ex-diabetic, has written a best-selling book, “Death to Diabetes”, detailing how he is now free of the disease without using drugs.  After surviving a near-death diabetic coma, he sought support from family, was weaned off insulin, reversed Type 2 diabetes and not only “conquered but defeated it.” He says, “I was overwhelmed by all of the medical terms and all of the things that I needed to do to manage my diabetes . Although it’s been quite a while since I felt like that, I haven’t forgotten what it was like to feel overwhelmed,” McCulley says.  http://www.deathtodiabetes.com

 Many feel the same as McCulley did when first diagnosed. “…it stays like a shadow:  one that can be controlled rather than cured. …  Management requires balancing many factors, not all under ones control,” states a study, Diabetes, religion and spirituality, published in 2012 by Dr. G.R. Sridhar, Director of Endocrine and Diabetes Centre, and an adjunct Professor, Bioinformatics, Andhra University College of Engineering, India.  www.link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13410-012-0097-8

A religious community can operate as a support group for those coping with the challenges - fear, loss of control, and discouragement - of managing a serious disease.  Increasingly, the medical community is realizing that “spirituality and religion are integral to the well-being of a person and need to be incorporated as per individual need,” according to Sridhar’s study.

Based on his experience, McCulley says that traditional medicine focuses only on how the body is doing by “addressing and suppressing the symptoms and never fixing the underlying root cause of the unhealthy cells.”  They tend to “overlook the importance of the Mind and the Spirit and its role in healing the Body.”  The sick tend to also focus on the body by “taking drugs to relieve pain or by feeding his food cravings … both of which may be driven by emotions such as depression” which sometimes accompanies the diagnosis of diabetes.  http://www.deathtodiabetes.com/Spirituality___Diabetes.html#.UpO2HsRDtng

A colleague relayed this story in which, through prayer and relying on his spirituality, he was healed of diabetes.  He had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, had nerve damage to his feet and legs, and was told by his physician that he would be on medication for the rest of his life, and would have to follow a strict diet and should not expect return of any feeling.

After three years of medical treatment, tired of “coping” with the disease and wanting to be free of it instead of just managing it, he asked the doctor to be taken off the drugs but was told that because the condition had worsened, the dosage would actually have to be increased.

“It was then I learned that conventional medicine could not cure me,” he said.  On his way home he prayed and asked God for guidance His prayers were 3 pronged: 

1. What is God? I reasoned that God made everything good.  Therefore He is good. Anything unlike good (such as diabetes) He did not make. 

2. What does it mean to be, as it states in Genesis, His image and likeness?   Since God made everything good, He made us good and, therefore, healthy. 

3. What is my relationship with God?  We are God’s children, therefore, He is our Father and Mother.  A loving Father who is good could not allow anything but good to be going on in his son.

By trusting God and committing to deep, continuous, and earnest prayer, the man was free of diabetes and continues to be.

Finding the right path to health is an individual and unique journey for each of us. For some, when that “shadow” of disease is overwhelming, seeking an alternative route like McCulley and my colleague did, makes sense. For some, learning to dwell “in the secret place of the most High, under the shadow of the Almighty” can make all the difference.   

Kate is interested in blogging about health, spirituality, science, religion, the importance of prayer in maintaining a healthy mind and body.  She is a Christian Science practitioner and the media, legislative and public contact for Christian Science in the state of Maryland.