Logan has a new blog detailing his diabetic adventures 

Here's what I had to say about the Tree of Life last time I dropped by there.

Curing Type I IDDM diabetes through diet

I'm going to make this as fact-based as I can. This is the story of how my son, Logan, contracted insulin dependent diabetes melitosis (IDDM aka Type 1 diabetes) and the facts surrounding his recovery though primarily diet and supplements.

I tell this story in the hopes others will heal themselves.

Thanks to all who have prayed for Logan. And they are many and spread worldwide.

What Started All This

Logan was born in 1991. His mother has IDDM since the age of 24 or so. He was never breastfed and loved milk products, particularly ice cream and cheese. (Cow's milk is linked to IDDM as explained in The China Study, as is lack of breastfeeding).

He never got sick and never missed a day of school due to illness in 12 years until he went to Va Tech (VT). At age 9 or so his weight ballooned about 50 pounds. His diet was the Standard American Diet (SAD)... maybe even worse. Many kids do this. Infants are obese now. They don't lack willpower. Our food supply has changed.

His grades were always B+'s. He took mostly IB and AP courses in high school. At VT, the first year was OK and then his grades started slipping. He started failing.

When I quizzed him, his answers seemed out of character. They seemed dreamy or unfocused to me. I determined that he wasn't on drugs (including alcohol or nicotine), and had never used them. (I know how that sounds, but trust me, I'm sure.)

I was so confused by his behavior that I took him to the doctor and we found his fasting blood sugar was 220. (It should be <100). His sophomore year was spent on Metformin due to an assumption of Type II diabetes (wrong) and the Metformin seemed to help for a year or so. His sugars were still high, but under 150.

A naturopathic doctor here in Austin tested him for food allergies via a blood antigen test and found him somewhat allergic to just about everything. They'd never seen anything like it. We ran these tests multiple times and had him alter his diet to eat things he was less allergic to.

After some time his allergies lessened but did not dissipate. We thought if we could get his immune system to stop overreacting then it would stop attacking his pancreas.

Then the endocrinologist in Blacksburg told him he had tested positive for the antibody that indicates his body was attacking his own pancreas. This is what is now understood to cause IDDM.

It is my belief that Logan's overactive immune system has been doing several things:

1. It keeps him from ever getting sick. At all.
2. It makes him allergic to all food and all common airborn allergens.
3. It kills the islet cells in his pancreas, causing IDDM

Incidentally, his diabetic mother never gets sick either. His sister rarely does.

Logan is motivated to solve these problems and can stick to draconian diets because he's seen his mother suffer from an inability to keep her sugar in a safe range. In my experience ALL diabetics fail to keep their sugar in the safe range of 85-100. It is too hard to replace your pancreas with artificial means. The balance is just too hard.

Logan was able to heal himself because his would rather live without insulin than live with cheeseburgers. He is very motivated. Determined.
His ability to focus and control his urges is really quite majestic.

His endocrinologist put him on insulin and added onglycin to his regimen. Onglycin is a Metformin replacement that costs $250/month and United Healthcare would not cover it. It came with coupons that would not work as the coupon redemption company wouldn't answer the phone for Walgreen's.

The costs of continual blood testing, insulin, and onglycin would easily have exceeded $500/month forever and resulted in lack of control of his blood sugar in my opinion, so I talked him into another option. This other option costs $12,000, about two years of the cost of the treatment he was pursuing, but held out the possibility of a cure. At first I thought that possibility was extremely remote, but wanted to give it a try. I didn't think Logan knew what it felt like to be healthy anymore and wanted him to feel that for once. That much I knew we could achieve.

We decided, based on the recommendation of 2 friends of mine who'd been there, to go to the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, AZ to participate in their Diabetes Reversal program.

The Tree of Life
In early December 2011, Logan went on insulin. 2 weeks after that, I'd talked him into taking a semester off from VT and in going to the Tree of Life (TOL).

The TOL is not a business as far as I can tell. It is run more like a non-profit. I had a hard time making a reservation and communicating with the staff by email and phone. Finally I took a leap of faith and just reserved space for the Jan2012 session in the absence of having many questions answered. I think it could be a business. But I'm a capitalist, a libertarian, and I believe in such things.

When we arrived, day 1, we were introduced to their food. The food is all alive. Some call it raw. Living is a better word. The living vegan organic food there is delicious. I didn't feel like I was sacrificing at all.

The 'phase 1' diet prescribed for diabetics contains no root
vegetables, no animal products, no grains (unless sprouted),
no legumes (unless sprouted). Basically it is above ground veggies,
green things, nuts and seeds. It is not low fat nor
low calorie. Most of the food is grown on site. The water is
all reverse osmosis, including the water for the crops and showers!
This is expensive.

It is like Atkins on steroids, without animal products where everything is organic and raw.

When we arrived, Logan's sugars were running between 150-400 with 14 units of insulin and metformin. That is extremely unhealthy.

On day 2, Logan's morning reading was 62 and he felt jittery and weak and had to drink apple juice to elevate his blood sugar.
Dr Cousen's cut Logan's insulin in half, to 7 units.

On day 3, Logan's reading was 58. Cousen's cut his
insulin to 3.

On day 4, Logan's reading was 60, Cousen's cut him to 1 unit, but Logan just stopped taking insulin. That was over 9 weeks ago. Logan has not taken insulin again.

Why? Why did this happen? Why did he get off insulin in a few days?

The food is extremely low glycemic. So less insulin is required. Clearly he was still producing some insulin (as is the case with 88% of type 1's according to Gabriel). His pancreas attacking immune system was calming down, but hadn't stopped attacking, and may never do so. But the food is also extremely high in nutrients, which act like a green shield, protecting the pancreas from immunological attack. That's my hypothesis, but it is also backed up by some of Gabriel's research and studies. If you can create islet cells faster than they are being attacked and killed, then you win the war against IDDM. That's what Logan is continually doing.

If you ask Logan about this he will recite the following:

"I don't have to ever take insulin again, and I'm not going to."

And when you look him in the eyes and here him say this, you will believe it.
He is determined.

Dr. Gabriel Cousens is an M.D. He's 69 years old. He's a yogi, a Lakota indian chief (or something like that) and a rabbi. When you do yoga with him, you will find he is as flexible as a 15 year old, probably more than most. He doesn't appear to tire and it is difficult to catch him forgetting anything. He is an excellent advertisement for the philosphy he's pushing. (Read his 4 books for more)

There were 15 diabetics in our group. 1 other IDDM in addition to Logan. The rest were Type II's. Every morning we'd all meet with Gabriel and he'd go around the room asking about sugar numbers, feelings, discomforts etc. He remembered everyone's name, their data from the previous day, he listened, and he responded. He is fascinating to watch.

I now realize what a real doctor is supposed to look like. Gabriel is the first real doctor I've ever met. He works very actively every day for about 14 hours to heal everyone around him. He is truly just amazing.

When Logan was taken off of insulin after a few days, everyone clapped. I nearly cried. This was so far beyond my most optimistic expectations.

By the end of the month that we stayed there, all 15 people were off of insulin and off of metformin.

The first week:

After the first few days, we fasted on green juices (mostly celery/cucumber) for a week. This was way way easier than I expected. The longest I've ever fasted in my life was when I was hung over. Type I's are given green smoothies instead of green juices. Gabriel said prior Type I's had inexplicably high sugar increases from the juices.

During the week long fast we did enemas every day. That was less of a big deal than I had feared. But I'm not a huge fan. The goal is to get poisons out of your body, while only putting pure things in and give your body a rest and time to heal.

Celery and cucumber are purported to contain compounds that improve certain aspects of diabetes.

During the fast, Logan frequently had sugars in the 50's or 60's with no insulin or metformin. Clearly his body was producing insulin. Other patients had much higher numbers even though they were still taking insulin.

We think being young was very helpful and enabled Logan to get off of insulin faster.

The second week at the TOL is about mental health. A technique called 'zeropoint' is taught, which enables you to get rid of bad habits and disruptive thought patterns at will and quickly.

You learn to control your thoughts instead of having them control you.

You know, thoughts like "Gimme donuts now!"

Logan has been the training at 'the forum' and said the training was similar, but in reverse. In the forum, you uncover old traumas and eliminate the habits they caused. In zeropoint you uncover bad habits and go back the the trauma. It is effective and easy to do.

Also during this second week came supplements. Logan got off easy and was prescribed $650/month in supplements for the first 3 months. Others had bills like $4000/month. The prescriptions came from a combination of blood test, Gabriel looking at your blood under a microscope, and strength testing from Dr Tice.

Gabriel will look at your blood under a microscope and tell you things like "See how those red cells are sticking together, that's your thyroid." He can tell much from just looking at your blood under a microscope.

This actually makes sense to me. I'm surprised all doctors don't do it. It's not any crazier than a stethoscope. It seems obvious that much can be learned from your blood, from just looking at it.

Dr Tice uses strength testing similar to that performed by many
chiropractors to determine ailments and supplements that will help.

Many of the supplements come from Precision Labs here in Austin. They sell them at People's drug.

In the third week you learn how to prepare raw pizza, raw lasagna, cookies pasta, and many other items in a raw living food vegan style.

Having desserts that are 'phase 1' surprised me. Xylytol and Stevia are the secret. For someone who cannot cook, this food is no harder to prepare than traditional american food had you never learned how to cook it. In other words, a caveman could learn to cook bacon and eggs about as fast as raw zuccini noodle spaghetti with 'meet' balls about as quickly.

Much of this stuff is in one of Gabriel's books.

The Aftermath
As we were leaving we got the news that a blood test done in the 2nd week at the TOL showed Logan's insulin production was in the normal range.

His pancreas was healing. Yes, it can do that.

Any endocrinologist will tell you that doesn't happen. Ask them,
"Have you ever tried?"

We came back healthy and off drugs. Logan's sugars are still normal. He eats a mostly living food vegan diet. My wife has been infected with the philosophy and has been extremely supportive of Logan. He makes desserts at Casa de Luz at night (which he cannot eat) and when he eats cooked food, he mostly eats it at Casa. I eat breakfast there every day but focus mostly on the kale and tahini.

Come eat breakfast with me there at 730 any morning, and I'll tell you all about it. I don't care who your are. Just come.

Casa de Luz (in Austin) is where I first heard of the TOL.

My wife is getting younger by the day, her skin looks fantastic and she has more energy than ever. My stepdaughter is also getting converted. She's seen the improvements in her mom, and she wants some of that.

My daughter, who I'm hoping to prevent from getting IDDM (she's 17), is less of a fan of the raw vegan life.

But we'll wear her down.

austin tx

it's like some bizarre never never land
an strange island of blue in a sea of red

a confusing mishmash of conspiracy theorists (e.g. alex jones)
militant vegans
aging hippy cowboys (e.g. willie nelson)
stoned musicians
fading movie stars (e.g. sandra bullock)
fading atheletes (e.g. lance armstrong)
liberal democrat tax and spend obama-philic politicians
lawyers of all flavors and predilections
right wing nutjob republican bush lovers
university of texas longhorn football zealots
texas a&m zealots who try cautiously to keep a low profile
katrina refugees (including some great chefs)
people from all over the world

many from every group are very intelligent
and they agree on absolutely nothing at all

it is the wierdest city on earth without a doubt