In a case report of the “Successful management of type 2 diabetes with [a] lifestyle intervention,” a 45-year-old fellow took responsibility for health into his own hands, and sought to defeat his disease and get off the drugs by eating foods purported to be anti-diabetic. But how strong is the evidence for, let’s say, ginger? “Diabetes is reaching pandemic levels…and requires safe, affordable, and effective therapies.” So, what about the potential of ginger in the prevention and treatment? Well, in a petri dish, increasing exposure to ginger compounds improves blood sugar uptake of muscle cells almost as much as the popular diabetes drug metformin. And in rats, ginger might work even better than metformin. But weight and blood sugar reduction observed in rodent models does not necessarily translate to humans. In this study, a combination of nutraceuticals caused mice to lose 30 percent of their body weight in one month, but in …