Hunter-Gatherer Diet May Help Prevent and Treat Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center (DERC)

DERC was established to support and enhance interactions among an outstanding team of investigators involved in Type 1 or 2 diabetes research.

UCSF JDRF CENTER (CCCT)

The mission of the center is to develop and test a new approach to the treatment of Type 1 diabetes by bringing together researchers from 5 academic institutions and 1 commercial partner.

In the United States, Western Europe and developing countries, type 2 diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions. It is now understood that the disease is part of a larger complex of disorders termed the "metabolic syndrome" -- insulin resistance, high blood pressure, cholesterol/lipid disorders, and type 2 diabetes -- that often leads to cardiovascular disease. Even with the availability of new classes of medicines, treatment of type 2 diabetes is difficult.   Always ready for a challenge, UCSF endocrinologist Dr. Umesh Masharani and his colleagues are looking back in history to identify dietary solutions for controlling the metabolic syndrome and eliminating the need for more drugs.

During the Paleolithic period over 10,000 years ago, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers and ate a diverse plant-based diet with variable amounts of meat. A major change in our diet occurred with the arrival of agriculture. With agriculture, our diet changed to include processed meat, high fat dairy products, refined cereal grains, and legumes which added rich quantities of saturated fat, simple sugars, sodium, and chloride - all increasing the incidence of the metabolic syndrome. As a result, a large percentage of our population today is dealing with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and even certain types of cancer.

Dr. Masharani and his team would like to potentially reverse this trend by exploring how the Paleolithic diet of our ancestors -- lean meats, fruits, vegetables and nuts (and excluding high fat dairy products, refined grains and legumes) - might help prevent and/or treat the metabolic syndrome and all of its related health challenges.   Dr. Masharani hypothesizes that the Paleolithic diet should result in improvements in glucose control, insulin resistance, blood pressure and lipids. Additionally, because the diet is rich in antioxidants, he expects that oxidative stress will be reduced and endothelial function will be improved at the cellular level -- helping to reduce cardiovascular disease risk in patients.

In this prospective, open labeled, randomized diet intervention study, 24 patients with type 2 diabetes will be recruited. One half will follow the standard American Diabetes Association (ADA) diet and the other half will follow the Paleolithic diet.    This study is a collaborative effort with investigators in the divisions of endocrinology and metabolism, nephrology, and cardiology, with the help of the CTSI Moffitt Adult Clinical Research Center. More information about this study can be found on the UCSF Diabetes Center's website: http://www.diabetes.ucsf.edu/EN/volunteer_info/people_with_type_2_diabetes:__age_18_and_older/

One of the study's co-investigators, Dr. Lynda Frassetto, has already studied the Paleolithic diet in healthy, sedentary patients and, in only two (2) weeks, these patients demonstrated positive changes in blood pressure, glucose levels, lipid profiles, insulin resistance, and brachial artery reactivity.

Dr. Masharani is a UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine and a member of the Diabetes Center at UCSF. Not only does he see patients in the UCSF Diabetes and Endocrine Clinics, he is actively involved in a number of clinical research studies involving both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. He was trained at Oxford University and The Middlesex Hospital, London.

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