On a balmy spring evening sitting on the balcony of a
Spanish holiday villa, Anthony and Ian Whitington asked their father to sit
down and look through some old family photos.
See photos and video of how type 2 diabetes develops in the human body...
The brothers had arranged the ten-day break to spend
precious time with their dad Geoff, but also to remind him of the man he once
was.
Geoff was just 62 at the time but his weight had nudged
over 20 stone which is way too high for his 6 foot frame.
He was so immobile he had to use crutches and was in
danger of having a foot amputated due to the creeping effects of the Type 2
diabetes he had lived with for ten years.
The trip two years ago was the brothers’ last ditch
attempt to save their dad.
‘We laid photos out on the table,’ says filmmaker
Anthony, a 38-year-old father-of-four from Ashford, Kent.
‘We told Dad: “This is why we brought you here.”
‘There were old pictures of him looking fit, healthy and
happy as he played with Ian and me when we were little.
‘Then there were the more recent pictures of him not only
very overweight at over 20 stone, but also cutting a much more distant and
depressed figure. It was clear he was ready to give up on life.’
Rather than see their father further deteriorate before
their eyes, the brothers decided to take action.
‘We insisted that if he could stick to the diet and
exercise plan we had devised for him, we could hopefully enable him to spend
another 20 to 30 years with us and his four grandchildren,’ says Anthony.
The searingly honest documentary is a salutary tale for
the 3.6 million people with Type 2 diabetes in the UK.
His sons believe this may not have happened had they not
stuck Geoff on an 800-calorie-a-day diet for eight weeks, an approach pioneered
by Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University’s Diabetes Research Group.
They also dramatically slashed his carbohydrate intake by banning pasta and bread after studies in the journals Nutrition &
Metabolism and Diabetologia in 2008 and 2012 found this may be one of the best
approaches to reset the release of insulin to safe levels again.
Yet this flies in the face of official NHS advice which
tells people living with Type 2 they don’t need to ‘completely exclude sugary’
foods and should include starchy carbohydrates such as pasta in the diet.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body’s cells become
resistant to insulin, the hormone which helps every cell in the body to take up
the glucose needed for energy.
The disease normally occurs when fat clogs the liver,
which regulates the supply of glucose into the blood stream, and the pancreas,
the gland behind the stomach that produces insulin.
Anthony says: ‘The official advice given to people
diagnosed with Type 2 is that it’s a life sentence.
‘However, with my dad, we wanted to prove we could
actually “fix” it.’
This meant the brothers had to undo Geoff’s life-long
habits.
A security guard, who often worked 15-hour night shifts,
Geoff would buy fast food several times a week, even though his second wife of
20 years, Marilyn, cooked for him at home. He also snacked on crisps and
cookies.
When Geoff was first diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes aged
52, during checks for his irregular heartbeat, he was given medication.
‘He took the view he’d just have to take it for the rest
of his life,’ says Anthony.
Every check-up he had over the next decade found that his
sugar levels had risen. Yet to his family’s dismay each time he was given a
higher dose of metformin a drug which controls blood sugar but no advice on
how to control it naturally through diet and exercise.
He started to suffer side-effects of having consistently
raised blood sugar. It damaged the blood vessels in his feet, reducing
circulation and he developed two ulcers on his right foot, one on the ball of
his foot and the other on his big toe.
On the other, he had developed Charcot foot, another
side-effect of diabetes, in which the bones become so fragile that the arch
collapses due to lack of blood supply to the tendons and bones.
Anthony says: ‘The result was that Dad was on crutches
and spent a lot of time on the sofa watching TV, making his health worse.’
By 2013, months before the Spanish holiday, Geoff was
told his ulcerated foot might need to be amputated and he sank into a deep
depression.
‘Instead of making him fight back, it was as if Dad
thought: “I might as well give up now,”’ says Anthony.
‘He started talking about putting his affairs in order.
We tried to reassure him it wouldn’t happen but privately Ian and I were
devastated.
‘He was the sort of father who would have done anything
for us. Yet we were ashamed to admit as his sons we had both been too busy with
our own lives to help. We decided we wanted to team up together and help him.’
A month later after doing some intense research they
turned up to Geoff’s house and asked him to make a pact.
‘We said: “You do what we say and we will film everything
and we will put this into reverse gear.”
‘We told him that he had to be accountable for the food
he ate and we would exercise with him to get him back to health.’
They started after Christmas 2013. The first step was to
get Geoff exercising again.
‘He could not put much pressure on his feet so we dusted
off his bike, which he’d previously only used for picking up a kebab from the
local takeaway,’ says Anthony.
Slowly with Anthony, a 10k runner, keeping pace at his
side, Geoff started cycling most days for at least half an hour.
However shifting Geoff’s food habits proved more
challenging.
Supervised by Professor Taylor, who they contacted
through the internet, Geoff was placed on an 800-calorie diet, consisting of a
lot of green vegetables and proteins such as meat, fish and eggs.
Both Ian and Anthony went on the diet and also measured
their sugars after each meal to gain a clearer understanding of what foods
triggered the sharpest rises.
When he was not with them, Geoff uploaded pictures of
everything he ate so his sons could see. As it started to work, they
dramatically lowered his intake of carbs like bread, pasta and flour-based
snacks.
At times, Geoff admits he was resistant. ‘The role
reversal was a shock,’ he says.
‘I saw it as my job to look after them, not the other way
round. There were tantrums along the way.’
‘Yes, he could be a stubborn old git,’ admits Anthony.
‘But we quickly realised he only lost his temper because
he was afraid to make the changes.
‘When people started congratulating him on how well he
looked like he lost six stone in seven months, he became more committed.
‘After a few months, the circulation started to return to
his feet and he got so fit he could complete a 100-mile charity bike ride.’
After a year of training and diet, Geoff’s blood sugar
levels had fallen to around 5 mmol/L well within the normal range compared
with previous readings of up to 15.
In January last year, Geoff also got the news he had been
waiting for. Professor Taylor wrote to him to say ‘a minor miracle had taken
place’ and his diabetes was now ‘resolved’, and he could stop taking any
diabetes medication.
Geoff now wants to inspire others to take action. ‘Too
many pills are being doled out because the right advice is not getting across,’
he says.
He could be right. Each day, 400 people in Britain are
given a diagnosis of Type 2.
The cost of the drugs used to treat the condition
increased by £87.6 million to £936.7 million between 2014 and 2015 and every
week, 135 people need amputations due to the disease.
Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at
Glasgow University, says: ‘There needs to be more clear-cut core guidance for
patients and their families on nutrition and lifestyle and how it can make a
difference to Type 2 diabetes in a meaningful way.’
Beyond his impressively trim physique Geoff says there
has been another unexpected benefit to his change of lifestyle. ‘Before we were
all busy and did not have much time for each other,’ he says. ‘Exercising has
brought us together.
‘My sons have saved me. That day in Spain, they showed me
that the wonderful times we had together as a family didn’t have to end.’
Watch video.
Source: DailyMail Health.
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