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History List

A staunch amylivore who was diabetic for a long time was cured on Cantani's meat cure, "although the patient had, so to speak, never eaten meat before this treatment, he was very well: the cure was maintained for a whole year."

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment.

March 12, 1872

Cantani summarizes that his cure only works if the patient wants to be cured, and those who return to mealy foods and sweets get sugar in their urine once more.

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment

January 2, 1876

Mr Adamo, a famous artist as well as a recognized diabetic for a few months caused by his "habitual abuse of flour" was cured with Cantani's meat diet. Cantani jokes "MA is doing very well, and will continue thus, if he no longer abuses the flour: we hope for the sake of Italian art"

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

November 22, 1870

Angelo, an architect in Palma, Italy, was diabetic for four years having "abused flour and fruit" but was cured by the meat diet of Dr Primavera and Dr Cantani

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment

November 10, 1870

A woman eating only flour, fruit, and pasta comes down with diabetes and cancer and is helped by Dr Cantani with the all meat "rigourous cure"

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment

May 8, 1871

Due to constant abuse of mealy crops, Cantani's 9th patient, Mr. Leopolod Lam was fat, and thus needed to go on the rigorous treatment of the meat diet which helped resolve his eyesight which had also clouded over with cataracts.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

December 9, 1870

Dr Cantani's eighth patient, Mr Filoteo V. De Furci, develops diabetes from "a diet almost exclusively starchy" and thereafter "he made a very rigorous cure of 53 days, eating a kilogram of meat a day" curing his diabetes and his rheumatism.

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment.

October 8, 1872

Cantani tells his seventh patient, the Baron Archpriest Girolamo MdG to "dismiss the last vestiges of flour that the patient had kept in his diet" to cure diabetes. Of note, to begin with, the Archpriest ate vegetables and fruit, eating meat only exceptionally, and still got diabetes.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

April 1, 1871

The sixth patient of Cantani is described, "After only five days of rigorous treatment, the sugar disappeared. Then he did the cure very rigorously for two months, and from then on, completely cured, he was able to return" other foods to his diet.

Diabetes mellitus and its dietetic treatment

November 1, 1870

Cantani's fifth patient, cured of diabetes with an all meat diet "Francesco Maria R., 60 years old, from Aversa. He was little fond of meat, and hardly ever ate it: no cause but the abuse of flour and sweets: no moral emotions, no sorrows."

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment.

September 20, 1870

Cantani's fourth patient, Mr Saltavore Musdace, was losing weight from diabetes and was eating an almost exclusively starchy diet, and was cured with an all meat diet. His diet even relapsed, again proving that eating starch would cause diabetes.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

February 26, 1871

Cantani's third patient, Mr Nicola Cardinale, a priest, was guilty of "abuse of flour for a year" and Cantani realized the priest was eating carbohydrates during mass and thus forbade him from celebrating it.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

May 3, 1870

Cantani's second patient, Luigi Vinci of Naples, was put on an all meat diet and is cured, but Vinci is too addicted to flour and sugar and dies two years later of illness.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

March 9, 1870

Cantani describes the first case of a diabetic patient he had who he cured diabetes with an all meat diet for 8 days. The patient said originally he was on the correct diet but realized that he had not believed such a rigourous diet was required.

Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment

February 22, 1870

Italian physician Cantani locks diabetic patients into rooms and uses fasting and a carnivore diet of lean meat, fat, and dilute alcohol to treat diabetes and his obituary spoke highly of him, saying he had a "clinical eye". He wrote a 500 page textbook on diabetes with recommendations to eat an exclusive meat diet to prevent glycosuria.

Le diabète sucré et son traitement diététique. (Diabetes Mellitus and its dietetic treatment)

January 1, 1876

Joslin's food values important to the treatment of diabetes lists many zerocarb foods such as meat, chicken, bacon, cheese, butter, oil, fish, and broth. He jokes later that it is impractible to show carb counts in other foods because they're effectively banned.

The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

January 3, 1923

Falck's observations on fasting dogs shows that a lean dogs dies after 25 days, but a fat dog can live for 60 days without food - as it uses less protein when it has fat to metabolize.

Chemistry of Food and Nutrition

January 1, 1919

Dr Joslin explains that Eskimos can "get along very comfortably upon 52 grams" of carbohydrate a day which "should greatly encourage diabetic patients"

The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

January 1, 1923

Dr Joslin publishes 'The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus' containing a thousand cases on the emerging epidemic of diabetes - and includes instructions to use fasting and low carb diets to prevent early deaths.

The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

August 1, 1916

Dr Joslin begins a ledger on diabetes after meeting a frail young Irish girl named Mary Higgins who was suffering from Type 1 Diabetes. He prescribed a low carb diet and recorded all of his cases over his entire career in his ledger.

Dr. Joslin Makes First Entry in Diabetic Ledger

August 2, 1893

Type 1 Diabetes researchers discover that low carb diets prevent retinopathy

Retinopathy in adolescents and young adults with onset of insulin-dependent diabetes in childhood

January 1, 1982

Dr Guthrie describes his fight for low carb diets for diabetics to prevent hyperglycemia, which he proved caused retinopathy and worse outcomes. Later, an opponent in a debate said that degree of control necessary couldn't be achieved, making it seem like a zerocarb diet was impossible.

Controversies of the Sweet Urine Disease

January 1, 1964

Dr Joslin describes how his mother's Type 2 Diabetes could be put into remission if she followed his low carb diet. She was able to live for 13 more years.

A Centennial Portrait

January 1, 1899

Carbohydrate syncophant, Dr Edward Tolstoi, chides the Joslin group over the pseudo logic of linking dietary sugar directly to diabetes complications - saying it was like a "religion", while in a joint discussion dismissing Joslin's rebuttal.

A Centennial Portrait

January 2, 1944

Joslin observes that the advice to eat a high carb diet for diabetics that have to pee most of the sugar out is a poor idea, even 20 years after discovering insulin. In his scathing rebuttal to Edward Tolstoi, he lists the benefits of how controlling high blood sugar helps longetivity.

Treatment of Diabetes - Letter to the Editor

September 21, 1940

Stefansson travels over the ice with two white companions who eat canned groceries and avoided underdone meat, thereby getting scurvy. Stefansson had to hunt fresh caribou to save the men from death.

Discovery

May 11, 1917

Stefansson talks with Lord Strathcona who ate only eggs, milk, and butter while also skipping lunch and ultimately breakfast.

Discovery

March 10, 1913

Stefansson is sick with typhoid fever and getting worse and worse. After signing that he's responsible for his own death, he leaves a settlement where he was forced to eat carby liquids and instead was able to eat fish and caribou, allowing him to begin to restore his health nearly immediately, although recovery still took months. The sickness capped his time in the Artic after five full years exploring.

Discovery

April 2, 1918

The natural Eskimo diet is explained, with 299 g protein, 169 g fat and 22 g carb - obesity, albuminuria, goitre, chronic constipation was not seen.

Studies on the nutrition and physio-pathology of Eskimos.

December 1, 1936

Joslin compiles 1,000 of his diabetes cases and concludes in the first English textbook 'The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus' that fasting, low carb dieting, and exercise are key to improving health.

The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

December 1, 1916

Opie realizes diabetes occurs due to a failure in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas.

January 1, 1901

German medical student Paul Langerhans discovers the islet cells of the pancreas but is unable to explain their function. The find is dubbed the ‘islets of Langerhans.

January 1, 1869

Galen is unimpressed with vegetables calling them "all unwholesome" and of "little nutriment to the body."

A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices

January 1, 206

Galen says on usage of broad beans as food: "Our gladiators eat a great deal of this food every day, making the condition of their body fleshy – not compact, dense flesh like pork, but flesh that is somehow more flabby."

A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices

January 1, 205

Celsus preferred beef while Galen preferred pork in terms of providing the best nutrition.

A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices

January 1, 210

Greeks and Romans depended on a grain-based diet but would suffer from eye disorders, stinking disease, and distended bellies indicating vitamin deficiency.

A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices

January 1, 150

The first usage of epidemiology and public health occurs when John Snow talked to local London residents of a cholera outbreak and determined they were near the Broad Street water pump, which had become infected by choleric sewage.

Mapping disease: John Snow and Cholera

January 1, 1854

Lilly Pharmaceutical Company works with Banting and Best to create ILETIN, the world's first available insulin product.

Milestones in the history of diabetes mellitus: The main contributors

January 1, 1923

Insulin is administered to a second type 1 diabetes child named Elizabeth Hughes Gossett who goes on to live a full life dying at the age of 74 from a heart attack.

Milestones in the history of diabetes mellitus: The main contributors

August 1, 1922

Insulin was administered for the first time to a human subject, a 14-year-old Canadian boy treated for diabetes, dropping his blood glucose from 520 mg/dL to 120 mg/dL in a day causing his urinary ketones to disappear.

Milestones in the history of diabetes mellitus: The main contributors

January 11, 1922

Fred Banting starts to collaborate with Best. They cut out the pancreas of dogs and extract their components and then added them back to dogs missing their pancreas - resulting in a lowering of blood sugar. Through further experiments and better extraction and purification techniques, they created insletin, renamed insulin by MacLeod.

Milestones in the history of diabetes mellitus: The main contributors

May 16, 1921

Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering perform a pancreatecomy on a dog which caused the urine in the dog to become 12% sugar proving that the pancreas prevented glycosuria by secreting the necessary molecules to maintain glucose homeostasis.

Diabetes mellitus after pancreatic extirpation

January 1, 1889

French physician Apollinaire Bouchardat notices the disappearance of glycosuria in his diabetes patients during food rationing of food under the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, and recommends meats, cheese, eggs, and cream to cure the disease.

De la glycosurie ou diabète sucré

January 1, 1871

Gontran de Poncins describes a seal hunt and the resulting feast.

Kabloona

March 15, 1939

The Kabloona eats the largest feast he ever has, describing the seal, fish, and caribou as well as the remaining rice he owned, realizing in the process that the meat really was necessary to stay alive in the cold.

Kabloona

February 15, 1939

Ellen G. White's estate compiles quotes that imply that God wants people to be vegetarians.

Shall we use flesh foods?

October 5, 1960

Goncins comes to love the taste of raw fish, preferring it over anything in France, and also thinks that fish helps warm the body better than carbs in rice.

Kabloona

March 5, 1939

Poncins writes that "Thanks to the abundance of seal, these people exhibited to me a powerful and dignified community, a life that might have gone on in an ancient civilization." He has found a people that engage in facultative carnivory and thrive doing so.

Kabloona

March 1, 1939

Father Henry's diet of frozen fish for the past six years is described

Kabloona

February 1, 1939

Lavoisier learns that food plus oxygen equals energy and carbon dioxide.

Ketones: The Fourth Fuel

January 1, 1775

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