Find Out the True Cause of Diabetes in This Exclusive Interview With the Authors of Infectious Diabetes

I have followed Doug Kaufmann for years now, have read all his books and can honestly say he has nailed it down, I highly recommend the book Infectious Diabetes, by Doug Kaufmann and David Holland, M.D., if you or someone you love is confronting diabetes, if you have a family history of the disease, and for all medical practitioners. Infectious Diabetes details cutting-edge methods to combat one of the world’s most devastating illnesses--diabetes.
While many Americans view diabetes as a genetic disease, the purpose of Infectious Diabetes is to dispel this belief and change the way Americans view diabetes. As stated by Kaufmann, "Every year millions of people with weight problems develop diabetes but millions more with the same problems do not. We felt it was time to stop blaming genetics as the deciding factor and time to find some real answers."
And answers are exactly what you’ll get with Infectious Diabetes. The premise behind the book is that, contrary to being a genetic disease, diabetes is actually caused by microbes and toxins in the foods we eat.
The following is from an e-interview we recently had with Doug Kaufmann and David Holland, M.D.:
What compelled you to write Infectious Diabetes?
Dr. Dave: We've seen an overwhelming number of hypotheses that have emerged over the years, all of which attempt to explain the etiology of diabetes. These theories come out right smack in the face of an alarming increase in the number of diabetics in the world, indicating that these explanations are just what they are--theories and not answers. This compelled us to put on paper what we've found in the medical literature regarding the documented link between fungal toxins, called mycotoxins ("myco" means fungus), and this epidemic we know of as diabetes.
Doug: Thirty years ago I began helping people with symptoms of unknown etiology. I did this because of the success I had with my numerous symptoms after coming home from Vietnam. Whereas several prescriptive drugs did nothing but offer me short-term relief, a changed diet made all the difference in the world. At that time, I followed a diet very much like the one outlined in our current books.
Having cured my own symptoms by changing my diet, I began to discover that doctors knew very little about not only diet, but also the cause of most diseases. While working in many different clinical settings with physicians, I began to simply ask these patients to change their diets and try either prescriptive or non-prescriptive antifungal treatments. The rest, as they say, is history!
What do you hope to achieve with its message?
Dr. Dave: We would like to offer a sense of hope to the person with Type 2 diabetes. In most instances, once a person is diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, they are generally told that they will be on medications for the rest of their lives. This could be true in the sense that medications do little to reverse the cause of the disease and seek only to minimize the signs, i.e., hyperglycemia. If the medications never address the cause, the cure will never be achieved.
It is amazing to read how a person with diabetes will still suffer kidney, heart, eye and nerve damage in a third of the cases where excellent blood sugar levels have been maintained over a long period of time. That's like saying you have a 30 percent chance of dying from cirrhosis even though you quit drinking alcohol years ago! The point is, there is another factor besides sugar alone that is involved in the cause of both diabetes and its complications, and it involves the documented exposure of humans to fungal mycotoxins in our grain-based food supply.
Also, a person with Type 1 diabetes may be offered some hope when they learn that some researchers were able to halt the onset of Type 1 diabetes by using an antifungal drug within four months of the onset of the disease. Realize that the onset of the disease may precede the actual diagnosis by a doctor, so it is important to investigate any strange, new symptoms, as outlined in the book, as early on as possible. Once Type 1 diabetes is present for longer than about four months in a child, the disease is permanent. Knowing that a cure may be possible for this disease can save many people from a lot of needless suffering.
Doug: I remain stunned at the hesitancy of American physicians to try harmless antifungal approaches for anything but vaginal yeast. The purpose of this book is to instruct physicans--and more importantly the lay public--on the well-documented etiology of fluctuating blood sugar levels. Do we really believe that "biggie sizing" our sugar-laced meals has no effect on our blood glucose levels? Shame on healers who don't understand the diet-symptom link!
Who should read this book and why?
Dr. Dave: Anyone who has diabetes or has a loved one with diabetes should read this book. Likewise, anyone with heart disease, high cholesterol or high triglycerides, high blood pressure, kidney disease resulting from diabetes, pregnancy-related diabetes, metabolic syndrome (or insulin resistance), or hypoglycemia. Once we touched on diabetes, we felt we must offer the link between the so-called "accoutrements" of diabetes, as well as the other blood sugar-related problems of hypoglycemia, pregnancy-related diabetes, and fungus.
All of these folks should read the book because, again, it offers what we feel is the solution to their problem as well as the hope that they may not have to be burdened with this disease forever. There is a "fungal exposure" questionnaire in our book that can help you identify your risk of present or past encounters with fungi or mycotoxins, and if you are able to relate positively with many of these questions, you may try out our antifungal program, outlined in the book. If you find yourself responding favorably to the antifungal program (which includes a particular diet), then, in retrospect, you’ve verified your diagnosis.
Some people find that they actually feel worse once they start the diet, and then improve as they continue on the program. To us, this reaction, often termed a "die-off" or Herxheimer reaction, is only further proof that what the person has is a fungal condition. Incidentally, blood tests for deep-seated fungal infections are sorely inadequate, and blood tests for fungal mycotoxins, outside of the research laboratory, are nearly non-existent. Therefore, a favorable response to an antifungal program is perhaps the next best way to confirm a fungal condition.
Doug: Diabetes affects most people in the United States, either actively (they have diabetes) or passively (a loved one suffers with diabetes). The interesting thing about this book is its ability to bridge gaps in our understanding of autoimmune disease. Today there are about 90 autoimmune diseases, yet medical science acknowledges that researchers do not know the cause of any one of them.
While following the advice in this book, certainly many people will notice declines in their blood sugar levels. What's most exciting are the reports we get that their arthritis, allergies and chronic stomach problems also improve. Breakthrough or common sense? In other words, if all of the seemingly "unrelated" symptoms were cured by following an antifungal regime, was there really an autoimmune disease in the first place, or were the symptoms merely caused by exposure to fungi and their mycotoxins?
If you could name one thing that people with diabetes should know, what would it be?
Dr. Dave: Fungi make things. They spit out these chemical mycotoxins as readily as we exhale carbon dioxide. These toxins can cause cancer, destroy our organs, alter our immune system, and affect our hormonal balance. There are mycotoxins that laboratory scientists can inject into animals and cause them to have both Type 1 diabetes and insulin resistance. That information alone is enough to make front-page headlines, yet in which newspaper have you seen this discovery boldly displayed?
In addition (going beyond the "one thing"), fungi cause infections in our body that can often mimic other diseases, such as bacterial or viral infections, and even cancer. Understand that the God-given job of fungi is to break things down. The only thing separating us from the grave at this very moment is our immune system. People with diabetes classically have a suppressed immune system.
It is well known, for example, that fungal infections are more common in people with diabetes. This is often attributed to the sugar being "toxic" to their bodies and interfering with their normal ability to fight off such infections. This theory is partially correct. What is not commonly known--except in agricultural science--is that fungal mycotoxins, such as gliotoxin, suppress the normal function of our immune system. Therefore, it is not the sugar that is toxic to the immune system, but the fungal contaminant on the sugar.
Doug: The Cause.
When did you first become interested in taking on diabetes?
Dr. Dave: Within the past seven or eight years, when I began working with Doug. I saw amazing results in people with high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and numerous other conditions with "no known etiology." Their problems literally disappeared when they followed a diet recommended by Doug and when they began taking either natural or prescriptive antifungal remedies. I began to investigate the thousands of documents available in the agricultural literature that explained how fungi contaminate our grains, both out in the field and in the storage process. Since fungi each make between 1-3 mycotoxins, the mycotoxin presence and exposure to humans is inevitable once fungal contamination of the grains or foods takes place.
This is dangerous because of the problems these toxins can cause. For example, aflatoxin, made by the Aspergillus species of fungi, is the most carcinogenic substance on earth. It is estimated that we consume between 0.15 mg and 0.5 mg of aflatoxin on a daily basis. By the way, a lethal dose is only 10 to 20 mg. Some of these figures were documented in the Jan 2002 JAMA. There are hundreds of other fungal toxins that we don't screen our food supply for in America, although some of them, such as zearalenone, made by Fusarium molds, are most prevalent in the American food supply. Zearalenone can cause infertility, feminization of male animals, and miscarriages in those who consume grains contaminated with this mycotoxin.
Bottom line is that the documented, huge problem of mycotoxin exposure from our diet made me very interested in studying the link between these toxins and various, chronic, human diseases. If animals become sick when they eat mycotoxin-contaminated grains, wouldn't we suffer the same fate? Do we not eat the same grains?
Doug: I'll never forget the first patient that actually tracked her blood sugar while following an antifungal program. It was approximately 26 years ago, and she did not come into the clinic seeking lower blood sugar. Rather, she sought relief from her allergies. As we succeeded in eliminating the allergies, she simply could not believe that her blood glucose levels had stabilized while on the antifungal program. On my drive home that day, I began to realize the incredible science lesson I was learning!
Aside from reading your book, what other resources do you recommend for people fighting this illness?
Dr. Dave: A few references come to mind. One is obviously Dr. Joe Mercola’s book, The No-Grain Diet. As we learn about the fungal/mycotoxin problems associated with grains, it would behoove us to minimize most grains in our diet. Secondly, I like the Fungalbionics series of books by Dr. A.V. Costantini, et. al. Any Internet search engine (type in "fungalbionics") can take you to their books, in which they reference literally thousands of articles relating fungal mycotoxins to human illnesses. Lastly, I’d recommend the Bible. Those who wish to rid themselves of a chronic disease are in for a lot of work, and some spiritual guidance comes in handy when making such drastic changes.
Doug: Imagine the magnitude of this discovery! We would be absolutely greedy to accept this as our own. For those who still doubt a fungal component to disease, read the Old Testiment, Leviticus 14:33-54. In addition, the physicians involved with fungus research and discovery for the World Health Organization (WHO) have extensively documented the ability of fungi and their poisonous byproducts (mycotoxins) to cause disease. Their series of books is called Fungalbionics.
I believe this is the second volume in the Fungus Link Series. Could you describe the other book(s) in the series?
Dr. Dave: The original book is The Fungus Link. This book expounds on the role between fungi and various illnesses, such as arthritis, depression, women's health issues, allergies and asthma, intestinal disorders, and pain. The second book--or the first book in the Fungus Link Series--is one that Doug and Beverly Hunt, PhD spent six years putting together. It is called "The Germ that Causes Cancer." As you would guess, that germ is a fungus. In this book, they do a great job in supporting the hypothesis that fungi and their mycotoxins cause cancer. In addition, it reminds physicians and patients alike that, even in the year 2002, when it was published, fungal infections are still being confused for cancer.
For example, fungal infections can provoke the formation of calcifications in our body--the same calcifications as those seen on mammography when "breast cancer" is diagnosed. They can also cause aberrations in the blood cells that look exactly like leukemia. Indeed, some cases of "leukemia" have been cured by antifungal drugs that were directed at treating the so-called "secondary" fungal infections that so often plague people undergoing chemotherapy. The implications of these findings are truly astounding. All three of these books can be ordered via our Web site, knowthecause.com.
Doug: As we realize the impact of this discovery, volumes will be dedicated to assisting researchers and the lay public in understanding the cause of disease. Presently, there are three books addressing the cause.
Do you have plans to write another book?
Dr. Dave: Yes, we sure do. We intend to touch on the fungus link between obesity, infertility, and neurologic diseases, in separate, upcoming books. The next book, however, will be the Fungus Link, Vol. II, due out at the end of June. In this book, we discuss men's issues, autoimmune diseases, ear-nose-throat problems, antibiotics, endocrine (hormonal) issues, and hair loss, all as they relate to fungi and mycotoxins. In addition, you’ll read about antifungal medications and the issue of yeast versus molds. In the latter topic, we talk about how the yeast, Candida albicans, has received a lot of press in the past 20 years; however, although Candida is a true, emerging problem, we explain that the fields of agricultural science and medical mycology encompass much more than the study of just this one yeast.
Doug: Bababababy, you ain't seen nothin' yet!