Diabetes is battling for a cure worldwide, but a Pune-based doctor has been curating reversal of this lifestyle epidemic with a unique blend of diet, fitness and motivation, so much so that chronic patients even at age 60 plus, have managed to cure their insulin resistance and one of them has even turned into a marathon runner. MUSBA HASHMI tells you more
A 48-year-old Pune-based stock market trader, Santosh Bakare, suffered a heart attack three years back and had to undergo angioplasty. Later, he was diagnosed with Diabetes. To add to his woes, he gained weight. Just when Bakare had reconciled to living with his ailments, his wife Sonali came across an advertisement on Facebook, saying ‘join this programme to completely reverse Diabetes’.
The couple decided to give it a try. “Because it was an ad, we were not fully convinced but as it was a matter of just `500, we registered for the session,” Sonali tells you.
After attending the session, the duo was convinced that the programme would work wonders. Both registered for the Intense Reversal one-year programme in January 2020. In a matter of two months, Bakare’s Diabetes was completely reversed and soon after, he went off medication too.
“I joined the programme to support my husband. Fortunately, my efforts didn’t go in vain. I have been able to shed a whopping 20 kg in these four months while Santosh has managed to lose 15 kg. Now when I stand in front of the mirror, I feel more beautiful than ever. I can’t put my feelings into words,” Sonali adds.
Their 18-year-old son was apprehensive of about his parents and thought they were caught in a hoax. “He kept telling us that this would be of no help, but we told him we were just trying it out. In a matter of days, the results were visible and he was happy. The lifestyle modification that we have gone through has not only helped us lose weight, but made us aware of our inner strength,” Bakare tells you.
The man who has made this happen is a Pune-based motivational doctor, Pramod Tripathi. He helms the organisation Freedom From Diabetes with a network of doctors, specialists, nutritionists and fitness experts based in Pune and Mumbai.
Tripathi claims to have helped reverse Diabetes in around 6,000 people in the past eight years. There is a reason why he chose to concentrate on Diabetes. “I have always been a dreamer. I wanted to live a purposeful life. After completing MBBS, I kept searching for what I wanted to do. I did an MBA. Then got into corporate and stress management. I realised in the corporate world people stay in touch with you only for a while. My calling was to do something sustainable. My wife, a Homoeopath, would often talk about how every patient got benefit from medication, except Diabetics. This got me thinking. I came across a book on reversing Diabetes and thought about doing something about it. We dug deeper and found that it merely requires lifestyle changes. This is how I started experimenting. I conducted a three-months programme and kept evolving. I am not a trained endocrinologist. I did my diploma in Diabetes management from Nanavati Hospital. But we have a huge following today,” Tripathi tells you.
Interestingly, reversing Diabetes is not a miracle. It is a scientific and systematic process. First, the patient needs to understand it’s root cause — in Type II Diabetics mostly it is insulin resistance. Which generally comes from diet, lack of exercise, and stress.
“We start by spending a couple of hours helping them understand the disease. They realise that Diabetes is just like fever, medicines can help bring it down but the focus should be on eliminating the cause. That means, a patient can take lots of medicines and insulin, but it would just work like paracetamol which brings the fever down for 12 hours,” Tripathi explains.
Once the patient understands the cause then there are four protocols implemented in a phased manner. It is the diet, exercise, inner transformation and the medical protocol.
For the diet segment, there are four phases. “We start with giving up milk and milk products and switching to smoothies instead and replacing white rice with brown,” he says.
Each patient is assigned a doctor, a dietician and a fitness expert. “Around 12 per cent people become free from Diabetes in the second phase, which is the introductory phase. This phase goes on for four-12 weeks. Then comes the third phase — the acceleration phase, where people start exercising at home. This phase can go up to four-eight weeks. For people who are overweight, we extend this phase by a couple of weeks. After the acceleration phase is over, we start the stress release module. I connect with patients in the morning and we work on stress relieving strategies. The three common emotions that we work on are anger, anxiety, and grief. This goes on for 28 days. If someone misses the live session then the recorded session is made available for him,” Tripathi says.
Then comes the fourth phase which is the maintenance phase. It focuses on muscle building. “Just becoming thin is not the solution. For the reversal to happen and stay for long, one needs to become stronger from within. More protein, more fruits and more oil are recommended in this phase. We set health goals for patients. When people take ownership of their goals, it makes a difference. For example, if someone’s muscle is 23 per cent the focus should be on making it 25 per cent. Every three months, the goals are reviewed. After five-six months, patients are in cruise mode. They know what to do and what not. After a year, when they step out of the programme, they know what they need to do for the rest of their life,” he tells you.
But there’s a catch. Different people respond differently to the programme. There are 80-year-olds who with 20 to 30 years’ long history of Diabetes but are now doing fine without medicines. However, everybody does not reach this stage. There are a total of seven levels to reverse Diabetes. Some may be able to reduce the sugar level in the beginning, while others in the second stage when they start the medicines. The third stage is where they stop the medicine, 45 per cent people are cured by these three stages, the rest 60 per cent people still need Insulin.
Tripathi’s annual batches have around 800 people, out of which 100 are usually from Bangalore or Chennai. The modules have grown now in their presence to include patients from India and abroad.
But as Tripathi insists, merely enrolling doesn’t serve the purpose. One has to be motivated as well. “It is all about inner clarity and motivation. If the patient will listen to the advice superficially, he will think he can’t do it. To overcome this, all patients go through a proper phase to enroll in our programme. This is the first experimentation phase for them, so that they have some clarity about the disease. There are two phases that they need to go through, Phase 1 is to see how they respond, and Phase 2 is for them to assess how long they do it,” he tells you.
The diet phase can be exhausting for some, but the good part is that the patients know that they are not alone in this. “We have a WhatsApp group of patients, doctors and dieticians. The patient can put in the query on the group and within minutes a doctor responds. Patients can also keep in touch with other patients from around the world. There is a cross-learning process, they see the reversal happening in other patients which motivates them to follow the protocols,” Tripathi explains.
The diet is an amalgamation of Ayurveda and Naturopathy mores. No one diet fits everyone.
Diabaetes come with a lot of related complications, but that does not serve as a setback. In some cases, the complications can be reversed too. “Complication and reversal of complication is something that does happen to a certain degree, depending on how advance the complication is. We have now 306 patients of kidney reversal. Right now I am handling a person of four creatinine, he has been coming down to lower creatinine. Some degree of reversal can happen. In 1.5 creatinine the results are much better. We have a huge database of kidney patients. So, we have an interesting and rewarding experience with kidney reversal. Retinopathy is more challenging. But there has been mild to moderate results in that as well, however some cases required allopathic intervention. Neuropathy is troublesome. But we have people in dozen who have improved. Some of them take six months, while others take two years, depending upon the degree of damage. In case of a bad damage, there is no reversal as well,” Tripathi explains.
Tripathi admits he is dealing with a lot of challenges in making the reversal claim for a disease globally known to defy a cure. “These are both on medical and behavioural levels. There are patients who don’t go off insulin even after the programme. Some with long standing Diabetes may go off insulin but not on tablets. With that, a lot of emotional issues come up. Patients don’t understand why the results are not showing like in others. Then there are behavioural issues to be handled. When spouses join our programme, we encourage it because the reversal is much easier. If one person is following the diet and their family is not supportive, the challenge increases. We have done a lot of work on adult learning and behaviour. What we found is there is only one Diabetic in the family and the rest have several other health issues. We connect all the issues with insulin resistance and make the family sit together and listen. Then it makes sense for them and they start following our instructions. Behavioural challenges are more when family members don’t buy the theory. Also, every case is different. We have handled so many cases so we know no two Diabetics are similar,” he tells you.
The cost of the programme is `500 for the orientation, which is of two hours. "If someone signs up for the full year with a dietician and doctor, it costs `30,000. If a family member wants to join in, it is `6,000 with no dieticians. For those who can’t afford to pay the full amount at one go, they can opt for instalment.
Amid the coronavirus scare, Tripathi has a few tips for Diabetics. “It is true that Diabetics have a higher risk of getting infected with COVID-19, but, as long as their sugar levels are under control — below 140, they are safe. Same for the people with blood pressure — it should be under 130/090. After 140 the free radicals start accelerating and create inflammatory reactions in the body. If the sugar levels are under control, it becomes the preliminary protective shield. Ideally, we suggest BP levels under 110 but as long as the prevention is concerned below 130 is just as fine,” he tells you.
Ask 65-year-old Pune-based marathon runner Vasudha Chavhan and she will tell you how Tripathi worked wonders on her. She went to him with a history of 14-year long Diabetes, but her dedication mixed with Tripathi’s expertise helped her beat the disease back in 2015.
“My son told me about Tripathi and asked me to give it a try. He enrolled me into the three-month programme. Within two weeks, my Diabetes got reversed and I was put off insulin. In the next four weeks, I got rid of all Diabetes medicines,” Chavhan, who is not on any medication for five years now, tells you.
There was a time when Chavhan was not able to walk even a few steps. It was sheer dedication that helped her transition into a marathon runner at age 62. “In my three-month programme, I was put on a customised diet and was asked to do mild exercises. After the programme got over, Dr Tripathi motivated me to not give up and improve my stamina. I then started taking small steps in a nearby garden. I used to walk an hour a day. Soon after, I had to fly to Melbourne to be with my daughter. In those six months, I worked out at home. I walked the treadmill daily. By the time, I returned, I had started walking properly. That got me thinking about joining a gym. Exercising then became a habit. Soon after all this, I participated in a 5K marathon, then 10K which was followed by the Ladakh Half Marathon,” she recalls.
Chavhan’s decision of becoming a marathon runner at 62 was supported by her husband and two children. “I remember when I took part in the Ladakh Half Marathon, my son told me: ‘Mumma you made all of us proud’. That was the winning moment for me,” she tells you.
The programme, she says, has changed her inside out. There was not a single moment when she felt like giving up. “I am not much of a foodie. I didn't face any challenges. I followed the diet and all the instructions. The results are visible,” she says.
Chavhan’s success mantra has been patience, exercising and following a diet. “To achieve something, you have to give up something. Diet and exercising play a major role in the programme. You can’t cheat on that. Also, meditation is the key. Even now, I meditate for at least 20 minutes before going to sleep,” she says.
She has a piece of advice for those who think lifestyle modifications are a Herculean task. “If I could do it at this age then any one can. One just has to have the passion for it. Since childhood, we offer sweets and chocolates to children as a token of appreciation. We teach them to be a good human being, we want them to do good in academics, but when it comes to their health, we don’t pay much attention. It is important that parents work on their child's fitness from an early age. Either enroll them into fitness programmes or parents’ themselves should take charge of it, so that children know the importance of health and follow it for the rest of their lives,” she says.
Bakare and Chavhan are not the only ones whose transformation stories will leave you in awe. Take the case of Saranya Rao. This 37-year-old, Pune-based Infosys worker, went off her three-year long Diabetes medicines in just three days.
“My Diabetes was detected during pregnancy with my second child. I had to be both on insulin and tablets. In fact, I had to pump insulin three times a day which resulted in my skin turning purple because of the injections. Due to unstable sugar levels, I had to deliver a premature baby in eight months. After that I was on tablets for the next one-and-a-half years. I started gaining weight as well. I weighed 82 kg. This made me feel lethargic and affected my work. I was constantly in angst about my rising sugar levels,” Rao says.
Rao, too, came to know about Freedom from Diabetes through Facebook ads. “I started exploring. As I gathered information, I started understanding how things work. Convinced, I decided to join the intensive batch,” she says. Within three days of joining the programme, her Diabetes medicines stopped. “It felt that I was on top of the world at that time,” she tells you.
As the programme proceeded, she noticed immense improvement in all aspects of her health. “My Hba1c count (three-month sugar average test) reduced from 6.7 to 5.6, fasting insulin reduced from 15.7 to 2.6, all this just within two months. I lost a good 20 kg in five months,” she tells you.
It felt like magic, she says. “Due to my breathing problem, I have been taking an inhaler since a very young age. I don't know what it was but by following the protocol, my breathing has improved and I do not have to use an inhaler that frequently,” she tells you.
Tripathi, meanwhile, is happy to tell you he has found his want — curing people of a hitherto uncurable disease, with a combination of scientific lifestyle changes, strict diet changes, upping fitness levels and a lot of motivational talk that somehow has been firing his patients for stepping out of their unhealthy comfort zones.
