Anyone with diabetic neuropathy knows how painful and debilitating the condition can be. Imaging when your arm is “asleep” with all that numbness and tingling but it doesn’t go away. However, an overlooked study, in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes, from 2015 provides hope for some reversal of this condition and in a natural manner.

The study was a 20-week pilot study of 35 participants were split into an intervention group (17) placed on a low fat, whole food, plant-based diet, weekly support classes, and vitamin b12 supplement, and a controlled group on just the vitamin B12 supplement. Various laboratory data and questionnaire data regarding pain scale, pain diary, electrical measurements of nerve conduction were collected at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the trial.

Compared to the control group, the investigators found that the intervention group had improvement in subjective pain report as well as objective laboratory studies.

Diabetes is a result of poor lifestyle, whether or not some of these had been a choice or not, we always have the choice to make the next choice the better decision than the last. For diabetics, that choice is choosing a whole food, plant-based diet that is nutrient dense, and reverse many of the aspect of the disease so that they can live a better quality of life.

AE Bunner et al. A dietary intervention for chronic diabetic neuropathy pain: a randomized controlled pilot study. Nutrition & Diabetes. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1038/nutd.2015.8