Type 2 Diabetes Management

I’ll separate this from the Fitness Thread since it focuses more on a specific health issue. Thought it might be of interest to anyone with T2 Diabetes. There is a growing body of evidence and research that T2D can be improved, or in many cases completely reversed, through dietary changes without the need for continued medication.

Report in the Nutrition Journal:
Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: Critical review and evidence base
(Link is to the Abstract, full text is also available there)

Highlights

• We present major evidence for low-carbohydrate diets as first approach for diabetes
• Such diets reliably reduce high blood glucose, the most salient feature of diabetes
• Benefits do not require weight loss although nothing is better for weight reduction
• Carbohydrate-restricted diets reduce or eliminate need for medication
• There are no side effects comparable with those seen in intensive pharmacologic treatment

Abstract

The inability of current recommendations to control the epidemic of diabetes, the specific failure of the prevailing low-fat diets to improve obesity, cardiovascular risk, or general health and the persistent reports of some serious side effects of commonly prescribed diabetic medications, in combination with the continued success of low-carbohydrate diets in the treatment of diabetes and metabolic syndrome without significant side effects, point to the need for a reappraisal of dietary guidelines. The benefits of carbohydrate restriction in diabetes are immediate and well documented. Concerns about the efficacy and safety are long term and conjectural rather than data driven. Dietary carbohydrate restriction reliably reduces high blood glucose, does not require weight loss (although is still best for weight loss), and leads to the reduction or elimination of medication. It has never shown side effects comparable with those seen in many drugs. Here we present 12 points of evidence supporting the use of low-carbohydrate diets as the first approach to treating type 2 diabetes and as the most effective adjunct to pharmacology in type 1. They represent the best-documented, least controversial results. The insistence on long-term randomized controlled trials as the only kind of data that will be accepted is without precedent in science. The seriousness of diabetes requires that we evaluate all of the evidence that is available. The 12 points are sufficiently compelling that we feel that the burden of proof rests with those who are opposed.

 

I've never been diabetic, but I was obese and my doctor said blood sugar levels on routine blood tests were in the range to be concerned. Like my weight, blood sugar levels have dropped significantly when I cut about 90 percent of high glycemic carbs out of my meal plans (bread, potatoes, fruit drinks, sugary desserts, pasta, pizza, rice, jelly and the like.) Funny thing, even losing 30 pounds since January I'm less often hungry than when I would eat things like bagels or oatmeal for breakfast and cookies or other heavy-carb snacks when I felt energy lag in the mid morning or mid afternoon. The other thing I ditched were "low fat" and "low cal" frozen meals with heavy reliance on pasta or rice. I eat higher calorie lunches, but I don't need snacks and I don't feel starved come supper time.

 

My mother had diabetes. She never took medicine since she could control it with diet. However, she did watch her carbs religiously.

 

My doc has told me to get my diet and drinking under control. Major lifestyle changes need to be made and I've been reluctant to get started. You would think that being told by the doctor that I was pre-diabetic would be motivation enough.

 

Auburn for what it's worth my wife was able to take the words 'prediabetic' from her Doc and go forwith and diet. Changed everything for her. Lost weight, looks great for her (our) age and A1c nor high normal.
Me, on the other hand gives lip service to it but not so serious - even though my beige with alcohol may be only occasional I realize it is bad, again particularly at my age, I still find myself making some excuse - like those d*** Horns losing to Ks for example.
For me the problem is lack of progress in weight loss for example. I can do fitness center four days, diet (minimal carbs), and no alcohol for a week and not lose a single lb. Very frustrating.

 

Virta is a fairly new organization with an ambitious goal: to reverse diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. Their approach is to repair metabolic health with carbohydrate restriction and nutritional ketosis — i.e., tackling the root cause of insulin resistance rather than just “managing” the disease with medications.

For many T2 diabetics it is a reversible condition, but you won’t hear that from the American Diabetes Association. Some of their funding comes from pharma companies who make insulin and diabetes meds, and they wouldn’t like that.

virtahealth.com

 

Towards Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

An article from Dr Jason Fung, a Toronto nephrologist who has had success treating obesity and T2 diabetes. Conventional treatment has been focused on medicating the symptom (high blood sugar) rather than addressing the underlying disease (hyperinsulinemia). Treatment of the symptoms will never reverse the disease.

The key bit:

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, type 2 diabetes is both preventable and reversible, not chronic and progressive. It is not a life sentence. [...] The root cause is hyperinsulinemia, and the symptom is high blood glucose. Type 2 diabetes, and indeed all the manifestations of the metabolic syndrome are diseases caused by too much insulin. Yet our current treatment paradigm focuses on lowering the blood glucose, which is only the symptom of the disease, but not the disease itself. Instead of treating the hyperinsulinemia, we were treating the high blood glucose.

medium.com/@drjasonfung/towards-reversing-type-2-diabetes