FAST
Method of Administering Treatment.—In many cases the patient is first put to bed during the starvation treatment, but recently Dr. Allen has emphasized the value of exercise, claiming that it assists in utilizing the sugar. In any case, the starvation régime remains the same. The patient is given only coffee or clear broth with or without whisky (one ounce every two hours) and the treatment continued from one to four days, or until the urine becomes sugar free.[141]
It has rarely been found necessary to continue the fast longer than four days, since in most cases the sugar decreases rapidly upon the discontinuance of food.
Loss of Weight.—The slight loss of weight, which may be noticeable as the result of starvation, is not undesirable, especially in those cases where obesity is a prominent feature. In fact care must be exercised in the follow-up treatment to prevent the taking on of weight by the diabetic individual, since, according to Allen, it is often found that even moderately obese patients (180 lb.) continue to excrete a small amount of sugar so long as they hold this weight, even upon a low carbohydrate diet, whereas those same patients show no difficulty in becoming sugar free if the weight is reduced by ten or fifteen pounds.