Reaven‘s greatest intellectual contribution was to suggest that insulin resistance (IR) & hyperinsulinemia are the necessary biological precursors for at least 4, but perhaps for all 6,of the most prevalent chronic medical conditions of our day – the very 6 that will bankrupt our medical services within the next two decades, unless we understand the crucial importance of his work & act without delay. The 6 conditions most likely caused by high-carbohydrate diets in those with IR are :
1. Obesity
2.Arterial disease
Local: heart attack or stroke
Disseminated: T2 DM
3.High blood pressure
4.NAFLD
5.Cancer
6.Dementia (Alzheimer’s disease aka type-3 diabetes).
Besides establishing the fundamental role of IR in these chronic diseases, Reaven also discovered the optimum treatment: carbohydrate restriction. Yet he subsequently failed to emphasize the curative effects of low-carbohydrate diets that his studies had so clearly shown. Why is it? Tim suspected that during his daily work at Stanford, Reaven was in close contact with some of the most influential cardiologists in the US & perhaps the world. They would not have taken kindly to their colleague’s suggestion that, to prevent heart attacks, cardiologists should prescribe LCHF instead of the low-fat diet dictated, then as now, by the dietary guidelines for Americans, the AHA & the ADA. So it seems to Tim that Reaven kept quiet,choosing rather to continue researching IR without paying much attention to how an LCHF diet might - simply, effectively & cheaply – prevent & reverse all the medical conditions caused by IR. By producing a unifying theory for perhaps six chronic diseases, and by presenting the initial evidence that these conditions are initiated by high-carbohydrate diets in those with IR, Reaven has fundamentally changed our understanding of how these conditions develop, how they should be treated, and also how they might be prevented.