Jason Fung2018Type 2 diabetes
Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally
A kidney doctor's case that type 2 diabetes is a body packed too full of sugar. More insulin presses the lid shut. His plan is to empty the case.
The core idea
Jason Fung is a Toronto kidney specialist who saw many of his patients arrive with kidney damage from type 2 diabetes. In The Diabetes Code he argues that type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much insulin and of too much sugar stored in the body, not only of high blood sugar. He compares the body to an overfilled suitcase: once the liver and other organs are full, sugar spills back out into the blood. In his view, giving more insulin pushes more sugar into an already full case, which treats the reading but not the disease. His answer is to empty the case with diet: cut sugar and refined carbohydrates, eat real food with healthy fats, and use intermittent fasting under medical supervision. He draws on clinical trials, the history of diabetes treatment, and the patients in his own clinic.
Fung builds the book on a simple picture. When you eat, insulin rises and tells the body to store sugar. Eat sugar and refined starch often enough, and the stores, above all the liver, fill up. A full store pushes new sugar back out, the way a packed subway car turns new passengers away at the door. That pushback is what doctors measure as insulin resistance.
From there his argument follows. If the problem is too much going in, adding insulin forces more into a full case. The blood number falls, but the overload grows. The fix he proposes is to put less in and give the body time to use what it holds: cut sugar and refined carbohydrates, and eat less often, with fasting supervised by a doctor.
01 · The cause
In Fung's view the root problem is high insulin over many years, driven by what we eat and how often we eat it.
02 · The mechanism
Stores fill until they push sugar back into the blood. Insulin resistance, on this reading, is the body being full.
03 · The fix
Less sugar and refined starch in, real food with healthy fats, and longer stretches with insulin low.
Interactive · the overflow model
A toy model of Fung's picture. Three dials set what goes in and when. The case fills while insulin is high after eating and drains in the hours when it is low. Run a week and see whether it fills, holds or empties.
Illustration, not physiology. The units are made up and the model knows nothing about you. It cannot predict your blood sugar, it has no target, and it does not suggest how long to go without food. This is not a substitute for professional care.
More refined food puts more into the case each time, and keeps insulin up for longer.
The rest of the 24 hours is the overnight gap. The model starts eating at 7 am.
HourLife's model, drawn from the suitcase picture in the book. Fung did not build it. Real bodies differ in ways no three dials can show.
Before you change anything
Tick what applies to you. The notes alongside fill with what to raise and the questions to ask. Nothing you tick or type leaves this browser.
Nothing ticked. Even with no medicines, ask before you fast.
Signs of a low such as shaking, sweating or confusion need treating at once, as your plan says. If someone is very unwell or unconscious, call your local emergency number.
Concept anatomy
Fung describes a vicious cycle. Each turn makes the next one worse, which is why, in his telling, type 2 diabetes drifts upward over the years when only the blood number is treated.
Push the lid down
Lowers the blood reading by forcing more sugar into the body. In Fung's view, the case gets fuller and the disease goes on. Doctors widely disagree that this makes insulin the wrong choice, and for many people it is essential.
Empty the case
Fung's answer: cut sugar and refined carbohydrates so less goes in, and leave longer gaps so the body draws on its stores. Any change like this, with diabetes medicines, needs your doctor alongside you.
The cycle is the author's model, built on the idea that insulin resistance is an overflow. Researchers still debate how much of type 2 diabetes it explains, though the role of fat in the liver and pancreas is widely studied.
Community insights
Tag 01HourLife takeaway
The blood reading is what doctors measure, so it is what most treatment aims at. Fung argues the reading is the symptom. The disease is the overload underneath it, in the liver, the muscles and the rest of the body.
Tag 02HourLife takeaway
He compares it to an overfilled suitcase, or a packed subway car where nobody else can get on. The cells are not broken. They are full. That is why, in his view, the body seems to ignore its own insulin.
Tag 03HourLife takeaway
The blood reading improves, but the sugar has only been moved somewhere else. Fung points to large trials of tight glucose control, such as ACCORD, that did not deliver the heart benefits people expected. Mainstream guidelines still rely on insulin for many people, so this is his argument, not a reason to stop a medicine.
Tag 04HourLife takeaway
High insulin fills the stores. Full stores resist insulin. The body answers with more insulin. Fung reads the slow worsening of type 2 diabetes as this loop running for a decade or more.
Tag 05HourLife takeaway
He points to bariatric surgery, after which many people's diabetes goes into remission within weeks. Trials such as DiRECT, in the UK, have shown remission through a supervised weight-loss diet too. Remission is real, but it does not happen for everyone.
Tag 06HourLife takeaway
He argues that fructose, from table sugar and sweet drinks, is handled almost entirely by the liver and helps build a fatty liver. He treats sugary drinks as the easiest and most important change.
Tag 07HourLife takeaway
When you are not eating, insulin drops and the body spends its stores. He describes intermittent fasting as an old practice and uses it with patients in his clinic. Fasting as a treatment is still debated, and on some medicines it can be dangerous without a doctor's plan.
Tag 08HourLife takeaway
Fung questions the advice to graze through the day. In his model the question is not only what you eat, but how long the body spends with insulin high.
Tag 09HourLife takeaway
In type 1 the body makes too little insulin, so the overflow picture does not apply and insulin is life-saving. Fung keeps the two apart, and so should any reader thinking about changing what they eat.
Action steps
Before you cut carbohydrates or skip meals, ask your doctor or diabetes nurse which of your medicines would need changing. Insulin, sulfonylureas and SGLT2 inhibitors can all become risky when you eat much less.
Get your latest HbA1c, weight and blood pressure written down, and ask what your liver tests show. You need a starting point to see whether anything changes.
Go through the fridge and cupboard and remove soda, juice and sweetened coffee drinks. Put water, sparkling water and plain tea where they used to be.
Pick the three refined foods you eat most, such as white bread, breakfast cereal or crackers. Write down a whole-food replacement for each and buy those this week.
For seven days, note the time of every meal and snack, and roughly what it was. Take it to your next appointment so your clinician sees how you actually eat.
Each time you shop, check the added-sugar line on one product you buy often. Swap one item a week for a version without it.
When you reach for a snack, ask whether you are hungry or just used to eating at that time. If it is habit, have a glass of water and wait until the next meal.
If you change your diet, test your blood sugar as often as your care team tells you, and call them if readings run low. Lows need treating at once.
Bring your log and readings to a regular appointment and decide together what to keep, what to drop and whether any medicine should change.
A full case needs emptying, not a harder push on the lid.HourLife note after Jason Fung
Pick setup actions and daily habits from The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
Jason Fung is a Toronto kidney specialist who saw many of his patients arrive with kidney damage from type 2 diabetes. In The Diabetes Code he argues that type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much insulin and of too much sugar stored in the body, not only of high blood sugar. He compares the body to an overfilled suitcase: once the liver and other organs are full, sugar spills back out into the blood. In his view,...
HourLife’s key takeaways include: Fung treats type 2 diabetes as a problem of too much sugar stored in the body, not just too much in the blood. In his picture, insulin resistance is an overflow: the stores are full, so new sugar is pushed back out. Adding insulin moves sugar out of the blood and into the body, which in Fung's view hides the problem rather than fixing it.
It's a strong pick for readers exploring How Your Body Works and Metabolic Health. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
Book a medication review first — Before you cut carbohydrates or skip meals, ask your doctor or diabetes nurse which of your medicines would need changing. Insulin, sulfonylureas and SGLT2 inhibitors can all become risky when you eat much less.
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally into its core idea, 9 community insights, and 9 practical actions you can apply right away.
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