Press Release
THE NOAKES FOUNDATION SECURES FULL FUNDING FOR LARGE-SCALE DIABETES REVERSAL TRIAL
19 December 2016
The Noakes Foundation has been awarded a grant of R5.6 million in order to carry out research into the reversal of Type 2 Diabetes. The Foundation was started in 2012 by Professor Tim Noakes and was established in response to the critical need for robust research into nutrition. It is a registered Public Benefit Organization which aims to advance medical science’s understanding of the benefits of a low-carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet by providing evidence-based information on optimum nutrition. The Foundation purely relies on funding to carry out this mandate.
The research is being directed by Professor Noakes and the team consists of an exceptionally talented group of Doctors, Dieticians and Researchers, namely Dr. James Smith, Dr. Salih Solomon, Chris Webster and Tamzyn Murphy Campbell of the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, University of Cape Town. The Foundation received the first portion of the funding from the source, who prefers to remain anonymous, at the start of 2016. This initial grant enabled researchers to commence the beginning stages of the project.
The Noakes Foundation is doing this research because of the high number of people who are reporting that their type 2 diabetes has been reversed after following a LCHF diet. Every day the Foundation is inundated with anecdotal testimonies from people around the world, claiming that their diabetes and other illnesses have been reversed since avoiding carbohydrates and sugars and increasing their fat intake. A disease that is taught to be irreversible is being reversed through dietary intervention.
This large donation has given Cape Town researchers the unique opportunity to study diabetes and the reversal thereof. This support has come at a critical time, with 7% of the South African population and 8.3% of the global adult population suffering from diabetes. Diabetes is considered the third highest risk factor for premature death and the economic burden that diabetes poses to the nation, community and to the patient’s family is staggering, with an estimated $673 billion spent globally on diabetes care in 2015. This is aside from the overwhelming obesity epidemic our planet is facing.
We need to, as a matter of urgency, find the biological explanation for the reversal of these diseases, in order to save the human race from grave illness. The Noakes Foundation is committed to finding these answers through its research.
