By Dr. Joseph Mercola

You are living in the midst of a diabetes epidemic.

By the year 2030, diabetes rates are predicted to double even if the rate of obesity remains steady. Researchers have estimated the total number of people with diabetes will rise from 171 million in 2000 to 366 million in 2030.

Diabetes is a devastating disease that destroys never every bodily system. Unfortunately, nearly every "expert" organization and professional is clueless about how to treat this disease.

This is most unfortunate as type 2 diabetes, or insulin and leptin resistance, is one of the easiest diseases to treat. It has been my clinical experience over the past 20 years that close to 100 percent of our compliant patients were able to radically improve, if not totally control, their diabetes.

There are a number of key solutions to controlling diabetes but they boil down to two simple lifestyle adjustments:

• Restricting carbs to "slow" carbs
• Optimizing exercise to improve insulin and leptin sensitivity

Diabetes is rampant on my father's side of the family, and my dad and all of his siblings have diabetes and one has already died from it. I have been exercising for nearly 40 years, and since that is one of the two keys to controlling diabetes I have been able to avoid it.

However, in the late '90s when the book "Eat Right For Your Type" was out, I tried using this approach, as it seemed to make sense. Since I am blood type A, that called for me to increase my grains and decrease my exercise from running to walking.

Well, folks, that experiment was an unmitigated disaster. I gained about 25 pounds and actually had a fasting blood sugar over 125, which would formally diagnose me as a diabetic. I instantly realized that the Eat Right for Your Type approach was not right for me (and for most people) and I immediately switched my diet back.

Since that time I have never had an abnormal blood sugar and it is typically between 80 and 90.

It has become crystal clear that most of us benefit from choosing "slow" carbs that release their sugars over time into your bloodstream. This would mean radically reducing or eliminating grains, sugars, breads, pastas, rice, potatoes, corn and popcorn.

The amount of carbs you can eat varies widely and is determined by your nutritional type.

Over the last eight years I have run hundreds of articles on diabetes in the newsletter. My staff has helped update them, and I recently organized them to make them more useful for you.

In addition to the basic principles I outlined above, there are a number of dietary "secrets" that I have covered in the past eight years that are not obvious when you use our search engine. So I have compiled them all in one easy page and encourage you to review them.

If you haven't picked up my latest book, Total Health Program, you will want to seriously consider doing that, as it is an incredibly practical guide to implementing many of the most important principles.

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