Peter Mansfield
Good Health Keeping, UK
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Diabetes Metab
This paper relates the history of diabetes type-2, from the beginning of settled farming and explains why there has from the 1950s until recently been so little emphasis on the prevention and reversal of the disease. Pilots and others in the early stages of diabetes have reversed their condition permanently by limiting carbohydrate intake. With little or no glucose in the blood, there is no diabetic challenge. Carbohydrate intake has in the past year been linked by nutritional academics with diabetes risk. Carbohydrate restriction is the underlying principle of several diets. The Atkins diet undermines blood lipids and insulin response to a glucose load. The Paleolithic diet goes further by additionally limiting dairy produce. Food combining and the Montignac diet, separate fat and starch which makes weight gain impossible. All are mutually compatible. The prize that motivates the pilot is unrestricted certification as fit to fly. The general public has no such motivation, so diabetes is unnecessarily prevalent. We need to develop charges, no-claims discounts or tax incentives to encourage the general public to follow the pilot's example.
Peter Mansfield was a Research Fellow in Community Medicine at UCH Medical School, London before beginning Good Healthkeeping, an experimental GP practice intended to encourage health. He is currently an Aviation Medical Specialist with extensive experience in the prolongation of health in middle aged pilots. He has published several books, articles in learned journals and has presented at a number of international conferences.
