Without getting overly political, many folks likely realize that diabetes (especially type 2) is largely a product of modern living that can either be prevented or brought down a lot by lifestyle changes - likely diet more than anything else, even though surely the other BIG two of getting decent sleep and adequate exercise can complement good dietary practices.

So yes, diet is really a BIG one when it comes to diabetes type 2 - but also a variety of other modern day metabolical conditions - and overwhelming majorities of folks are caught up in the various misinformation practices of the world - and surely it is possible that even Yahoo62278 may have had some of these negative effects upon himself and his actual condition too, even if it could also be that he might have still ended up suffering similar negative heart-related issues because there were likely genetic and/or predisposition components too... but various good dietary practices can help a lot of us, even if we might have some exacerbating negative genetic predispositions.

By the way, the healthy and young human body can tolerate a whole hell of a lot of abuse, so it is possible to eat badly and even have a lot of bad habits when we are younger and if we might have decent genetics, but as we get older we likely become less and less tolerant to abuses, yet we can still tolerate some levels of abuse even if we are not in good shape, such as eating bad foods or smoking and drinking and things like that, even if those kinds of behaviors are not good for us.

Clean eating may well start with attempting to go all natural and eliminating processed foods, so of course cutting out or reducing various kinds of processed foods will likely go a long way, so that would likely end up lowering sugars and lowering simple sugars that are in a lot of those foods.  A lot of process foods also have unnatural ingredients and chemicals, but also a variety of kinds of processed oils that our bodies cannot tolerate very well, and which cause unnecessary inflammation that can contribute towards making bad conditions worse.

There can shared opinions in regards to the benefits of eating natural, but surely, there can be disputes regarding cutting out meat and things like that - which I believe is bullshit propaganda.. so having natural diets that include meat and animal fats and eggs are likely good.. and the more natural fats in the meats are likely good including cooking foods with those, so the less controversial practices are cutting simple sugars and eating natural, and maybe it is good to leave it at that. 

Without teeth, yahoo might end up getting nutrition that might not be as preferred, even though I understand that Yahoo's more immediate concern is getting his surgery done - even though surely there could be some dietary aspects that will keep him stronger and more prepared for the surgery than others - so in that sense, there still likely needs to be concerns to make sure nutrients are decently good both in preparation for surgery and then during the recovery process, too.  I would imagine with a new heart that the best of scenarios would be a recovery period that is 3 months or so, and of course, with ongoing concerns to watch for rejection (so anti-rejection measures), and more realistic recovery would be longer than 3 months and sometimes ongoing addressing of issues for a year or so down the road.. getting past the first year is likely a kind of goalpost that medical professionals like to consider as good progress... and with several aspects of diet, rest and exercise - with diet being amongst the highest of importance, there is quite a bit of discretion that goes to the patient in terms of what s/he is choosing to put in his/her mouth - and of course, with the help of the family once out of the medical setting.  Within the medical setting, there sometimes can be quite a bit of strictness, but if you seem to know what you are doing (and you are not having what seem to be obvious complications that might come from dietary issues), doctors may well allow deviance from the standard dietary hospital protocols, too.