You’ve probably saved my life - if not already then soon.
About 10 years ago (when I was 40) I started falling asleep at the
wheel. I would gradually fade, nod off for some milliseconds (I think)
and then jolt myself awake. This would happen repeatedly on any trip
longer than half an hour and in spite of taking coffee and energy
drinks.
This became particularly concerning after both my father and a first cousin each fell asleep at the wheel and were killed in the resulting crashes about 8 years ago. My great grandfather also appears to have suffered the same fate many years ago. At my father’s funeral other family members admitted having run off the road after falling asleep.
It came to a head for me 3 years ago when I fell asleep with my family
in the car and had a near miss. After that I started experimenting with
food because I had noticed that the problem seemed to have started with
a change in diet. I had been repeatedly advised by doctors to cut down
on meat because my cholesterol was slightly high. I kept reducing my
meat intake and replacing it with more bread and potatoes. It made no
difference to my cholesterol and I gained fat.
I was just making the link between eating bread and falling asleep
shortly afterwards when I discovered you. The inherent logic of EF
struck me immediately and I’ve been a fairly strict EF’er for the last
year. My HDL has jumped 70%, my triglycerides have fallen 40% and my
insulin is off the bottom of the scale. Most importantly I’ve had no
inclination to fall asleep while driving since.
There’s been a growing awareness here in NZ that many of our crashes
are caused by sleeping drivers and the standard advice is to get more
sleep. I wonder how many of these drivers are actually in a
pre-diabetic state. Nobody mentions diet.
Thank you Dr DeVany.
And on behalf of my family, thank you.