[mandeepj]

> However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects.

>We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases.

Seriously? The answer to all of the above - Yes, we can!

[avgDev]

You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take? If you get an infection you are taking meds. If you get kidney stones, you are very likely getting meds, if you injure yourself and need surgery you are getting meds. These carry risks, therefore, every time your chances of "perfect health" are decreasing.

I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.

Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer. A top club soccer player is now going through testicular cancer treatment.

I am not sure how general person can control any of this.

[WalterBright]

Many cancers are lifestyle affected. For example, smoking and lung cancer. Excessive sun exposure and skin cancer. Alcohol consumption and throat cancer.

[Broken_Hippo]

No, it really isn't. "Control your medication" might leave you dead if you are diabetic or leave you hearing voices if your meds control a psychiatric condition.

In the same vein, you don't really get a choice in most cancers. Sure, you can do things like never smoke tobacco, but you might just be an 8-year-old with bone cancer. And lots of other afflictions and diseases are similar in this manner, much like you probably won't be able to avoid whatever cold is circulating in your workplace.

And I've not seen any proof otherwise.

[nradov]

Most patients with type-2 diabetes can reduce or even eliminate their need for medication through lifestyle changes.

https://www.virtahealth.com/research

[tomca32]

Absolutely. The problem is that diabetes type 2 is a lifestyle induced condition. People (most not all) get type 2 because of unhealthy diet so sure you can eliminate the need for medication by eating healthy.

Insulin dependent diabetes is type 1. Eating healthy still helps but you will die without insulin injections no matter your diet

[Broken_Hippo]

Type 1 exists, and often starts in childhood. Some of the folks with type 2 won't be able to control it with lifestyle changes, there is no evidence that you can cure it, and it has been pretty common knowledge that you have better results if you eat healthily.

Your link is an advertisement, however, and doesn't back up your claims. Sure, they cite research - 6 papers - but they were funded by Virta. [1] At least some of the research was done by cofounders.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...

[nradov]

The link backs up my claims. Apparently you didn't read the underlying research papers.

No one is claiming a cure for type-2 diabetes, or that it works for every single patient. So I think your comment was not made in good faith. However, dietary changes can put it into remission for many patients. This has to be a permanent lifestyle change; it's not something they can just do just temporarily to fix the underlying pathology.

[Broken_Hippo]

I very highly doubt most of the folks are reading the research pages: I, like most folks here, am not a scientist, doctor, nor dietician. So I do have to look at other things to assess whether or not information is trustworthy before I take it at its word.

I'm not even saying that diet doesn't help. Neither is anyone else.

What I am saying is that your link is an advertisement for a paid service in the US, is done on a limited number of studies and some of those studies are done by a couple of the folks that founded the company. Not to mention that they funded the studies. These things actually make me doubt the entire premise for these links.

From what I can tell, they are basically pushing keto on diabetics. This particular diet program isn't a cure-all, nor does it perform better or have fewer risks than other diets. I don't doubt diet helps, I'm just doubting that this particular diet is something to push on others unless there is more research on this particular diet.

[cma]

I assume what he means with medications is if the benefits outweigh the side effects, that person is stuck with the side effects.

[mandeepj]

One can at least "try" to find a similar ayurvedic medicine. It has no side effects

[bee_rider]

There are definitely some medications that can be avoided by healthy living and we should try to minimize our use of those. But there are others that are necessary due to unpredictable random health issues.

In my mental model, I'm trying to minimize the number of avoidable medications that I take, because you never know if they'll have some weird interaction with a truly necessary one. I'm not sure if this is actually the right way to think of it, but it seems to be working out OK so far.