Gary Taubes on carbohydrate restriction as first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes: recommends

Gary Taubes says type 2 diabetes is fundamentally a “carbohydrate-intolerance disorder” and that dietary treatment — carbohydrate restriction — should precede or accompany drug therapy. This is the central argument of his book Rethinking Diabetes, whose Granta paperback was released in January 2026.

His stated reasoning: he says medicine knew how to reverse type 2 diabetes by diet for 150 years before insulin’s 1921 discovery, and he argues that the modern reliance on drugs for type 2 diabetes reflects untested assumptions about the disease’s treatment rather than settled science. He distinguishes this from type 1 diabetes, where he says insulin’s 1921 discovery was a genuine breakthrough because the body produces no insulin. (Defeat Diabetes interview, 2024)

This page reports Taubes’s position as he states it; it is not medical advice, and diabetes treatment decisions should be made with a qualified clinician.

This page chronicles a stated position of the person above. It is not medical advice and not the site's own conclusion.