Hi, Craig!

Beats me!  Robert McFerran (I misspelled his last name in my post)
developed his diets based on metabolism.  He says that eating according to
your metabolism supports you in good health, while eating against your
metabolism erodes your health, sometimes with disasterous consequences.  He
believes that the Rhumatoid Arthritis he developed came from eating the
high carb, low fat fad diet when he has a Hunter-Gatherer metabolism.  He
specifically says that people with Type II Diabetes are Agriculturalists
and cannot handle the large quantities of meat and animal fat that the H-G
can.  I cannot comment on Dr. Schwarzbein's findings, but you could e-mail
Robert and ask him:  [log in to unmask]  You can read about his diets at:

         http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/rwgully/theories/mcferran7.htm

You can also go to this site and click on "Robert McFerran's Diets." He has
a lot of posts here and you can get a feel for where he's coming from:

         http://askwaltstollmd.com/archives.html

Be sure to read the archive dated August 26, 1999, "Introduction page to
Metabolic Diets." That puts it in a nutshell.

McFerran studied the writings of a lot of researchers in developing these
diets.  He seems to have based them on the work of Dr. George Watson and
Dr. Rudolph Wiley.  Dr. Wiley wrote, "Biobalance."  William Wolcott's diets
are based on the work of Dr. Watson.  They all have the three types--a
protein based diet, a carb-based diet, and a mixed-type diet.

Oh, yes, and your question about diabetes being either/or.  My
understanding is:  not really.  You usually aren't completely healthy one
day and the next you have full-blown diabetes II or hypoglycemia.  It's a
process.  And the tendency is there before it goes into the full-blown
stage.  McFerran uses the blood sugar curve from a five-hour glucose
tolerance test.  If the numbers drop below your fasting blood sugar level,
you are hypoglycemic.  I have reactive hypoglycemia, ad if I don't have
meat three times a day...don't expect me to break any work records!

Jane


At 09:11 AM 12/22/02 -0500, you wrote:
>You wrote:
>
> >If you are
> >inclined to diabetes, you are an A.
>
>Well, that's rather silly of McFerrin, isn't it?  Diana
>Schwarzbein (http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/) is an
>endocrinologist who worked with Type II diabetics, and she found
>that an agriculture-based diet is the very thing that
>*aggravates* diabetes.  Or is McFerrin talking about Type I /
>Juvenile diabetes (and if so, how is one "inclined" toward
>it---isn't Type I and either/or proposition)?
>
>.:. Craig