Fasting blood sugars decreased 59 percent more in the vegan group than in the ADA group. And, while the vegans needed less medication to control their blood sugars, the ADA group needed just as much medicine as before. The vegans were taking less medicine, but were in better control. While the ADA group lost an impressive 8 pounds, on average, the vegans lost nearly 16 pounds. Cholesterol levels also dropped more substantially in the vegan group compared to the ADA group.
Diabetes can cause serious damage to the kidneys, resulting in protein loss in the urine.
Several of our subjects already had significant protein loss at the beginning of the study, and the ADA group did not improve in this respect. In fact, their protein losses actually worsened somewhat over the 12 weeks of the study. The vegan group, on the other hand, had a large reduction in protein losses. Encouraged by the strong results of this pilot study, we are planning a much larger study for next year. We all owe a great debt to these volunteers who generously gave their time to help us learn how to improve our treatments for diabetes.