Diabetes Roll-call (Help, Talk, Support)

Oh hey no prob bud.

When I'm between 100-120 I have been eating a piece of toast with peanut butter before bed. I use Orowheat Double Fiber bread because the whole wheat helps to slow the absorption of carbs this way it lasts longer while you sleep. I use peanut butter for the protein....a natural one with no hydroganated oils so I need to stir it.

Maybe there are better options but the above works for me.

Blessings..

reply to post by semperfortis


Remember, if you eventually decide to follow Atikins more closely and restrict your carbohydrates to below 50g/or go into ketosis then you need to be sure and still inject your insulin, otherwise you'll go into diabetic ketoacidosis.

As long as your insulin levels stay at or above glucagon levels you'll be fine.

-Dev

To add to my post above: I'm sure you know this already, but if you're taking insulin and adhering to a low-carb diet you need to adjust your insulin doses accordingly; otherwise, hypoglycemia very possible.



I linked Dr. Bernstein earlier in the thread. Here is an exchange between him and a so-called expert.

I struggle to understand why you are publishing information recommending low-or no-carb meals for people with diabetes.

As someone who has taken insulin for 29 years, I would expect you most of all to understand the relationship between carbohydrate and insulin.

I have to fight this confusion with my patients on a regular basis.

Do you not agree that people with type 1 diabetes who take insulin are at high risk of hypoglycemia and ketoacidosis when they deplete carbohydrate from their meals?

What happened to the knowledge that carbohydrate is our body's primary fuel source as well as B vitamins and fiber?

I truly wish that we would stop confusing our diabetes population by giving them so much conflicting information.

Many of my patients are advised to avoid carbohydrate to promote "weight loss" by most of our primary care and family practitioner physicians.

Unfortunately, many of them are also on long acting insulin or sulfonylureas.

These patients will be causing hypoglycemia and possible ketosis by following their physicians advise.

My request to you is to stop publishing articles that contain controversial, unproven, and possibly harmful advice.

Let's give people clear, concise, proven, and recommended guidelines from health organizations with credibility, shall we?

Diane Schafer, LDN,RD,CDE

P.S. I thought we all knew by now that diets don’t work.

The idea here seems to be that diabetics have got to eat lots of carbs because of all the insulin they are pumping into themselves.

It's a bit like saying 'keep taking the poison so that you can keep overdosing on antidote'... and twice as stupid.

Here's Richard's reply:

I was present in the late 1940s when the American Diabetes Association (ADA) first recommended a high-carbohydrate diet.

At that time, it was believed that the long-term complications of diabetes were due to the high cholesterol levels so common to people with diabetes.

It was assumed that this was a consequence of dietary fat and that by dramatically reducing fat and substituting large amounts of carbohydrate, these complications would be avoided.

There never were, and still have never been, any studies supporting this hypothesis.

So if anything is “un-proven,” it is the ADA hypothesis.

Except for a brief change of mind in 1975-76, it wasn’t until the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial terminated that the ADA acknowledged that the real culprit might be high blood sugars.

More recently, studies comparing high- and low-carbohydrate diets have finally been performed and show that low-carbohydrate diets reduce both blood sugars (HbA1c) and conventional cardiac risk factors.

A number of these studies were actually published in ADA research journals such as Diabetes Care.

In spite of this, probably because of a rigid adherence to tradition, the ADA continued to raise carbohydrate guidelines and even now recommends the use of rapid-acting carbohydrate such table sugar, bread, potatoes, pasta, etc..

The new but unproven ADA hypothesis is that people with diabetes can keep blood sugars normal by covering large amounts of carbohydrate with “industrial” doses of insulin.

This never worked for me (I’ve had diabetes for 58 years) or for my thousands of patients.

The reasons for this include the following:

1) We can never know the exact carbohydrate content of a meal. In the United States, labeling laws permit an error of +/- 20 percent of the carbohydrate content of a serving.

For a typical ADA meal containing 150 grams of carbohydrate, he uncertainty is +/- 30 grams. One gram of carbohydrate will typically raise the blood sugar of a type 1 person by 5 mg/dl for a net uncertainty of +/- 150 mg/dl.

Carbohydrate estimates in books are even more uncertain.

2) John P. Bantle, MD, professor of medicine, division of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism at the
University of Minnesota Medical School, demonstrated that for a given individual from day to day, the uncertainty of insulin absorption from typical ADA megadoses varies from +/-29 percent to +/- 39 percent.

He further showed that the timing of action of these large doses is likewise highly variable.

Thus, it is the high-carbohydrate diets covered by megadoses of insulin that increase the likelihood of hypoglycemia.

In the 20 plus years that I have been in practice, only five of my patients have had severe hypoglycemia causing loss of consciousness.

Two of these people were eating excessive amounts of carbohydrate and three made major mistakes such as taking the wrong type of insulin.

I’m sure this is a far cry from the incidence of severe hypoglycmia among patients of highcarbohydrate practitioners.

The ADA’s designation of high blood sugar—an A1C of 7% (corresponding to an average blood glucose of 170 mg/dl) when non-diabetics whom I have tested show about 4.2-4.8%—attests to its lack of interest in blood-sugar normalization.

This may further explain the ADA failure to give up on its high-carbohydrate diet.

This likelihood is also supported by ADA opposition to blood glucose self monitoring (BGSM) for 14 years—from 1969 when I first demonstrated it to their president until 1983 when pressure from patients became overwhelming.

To this day, the ADA opposes BGSM for the 90 percent of people with diabetes who don’t take insulin. As a result, Medicare will not pay for BGSM for this 90 percent.

Doesn’t this suggest that all of us with diabetes have an “orphan” disease without strong organized support for our well being?

If some readers still consider this subject “controversial,” they should log on to the Internet (www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk) and search at these sites for my book “Diabetes Solution” to read what hundreds of Amazon readers over the years have been saying about the lifesaving effects of their new low-carb diets.

Remember, however, that lowering dietary carbohydrate without drastically lowering insulin doses and doses of other blood-sugar lowering medications can cause severe hypoglycemia.

comfort-eaters-diet.blogspot.com...

This really is a great discussion.

-Dev

heartscanblog.blogspot.com...

Diabetes from fruit

Mitch sat in my office, looking much the same as he had on prior visits.

At 5 ft 7 inches, he weighed a comfortable 159 lb, though he did have a small visible "paunch" above his beltline.

I had been seeing Mitch for his heart scan score of 1157 caused by low HDL of 38 mg/dl, severe small LDL (87% of total LDL), and lipoprotein (a).

Part of Mitch's therapeutic program was elimination of wheat, cornstarch, and sugars, the three most flagrant triggers of small LDL particles, and weighing his diet in favor of oils and fats to reduce Lp(a). However, Mitch somehow failed to follow our restriction on fruit, which we limit to no more than two 4 oz servings per day, preferably berries. He thought we said "Eat all the fruit you want." And so he did.

Mitch had a banana, orange, and blueberries for breakfast. For lunch, along with some tuna or soup, he'd typically have half a melon, a pear, and red grapes. For snacks, he'd have an apple or nectarine. After dinner, it wasn't unusual for Mitch to have another piece of fruit for dessert.

Up until Mitch's last visit, he'd had blood glucose levels of 100-112 mg/dl, above normal and reflecting mild insulin resistance and pre-diabetes. Today, on his unlimited fruit diet, his blood sugar: 166 mg/dl--well into diabetes territory.

I helped Mitch understand the principles of our diet better and advised him to reduce his fruit intake to no more than the 2 small servings per day, as well as sticking to our "no wheat, no cornstarch, no sugar" principles.

While fruit is certainly better than, say, a half-cup of gummy bears (84.06 g carbohydrates, 50.12 g sugars), fruit is unavoidably high in carbohydrates and sugars.

Take a look at the carbohydrate content of some common fruits:

Apple, 1 medium (2-3/4" dia)
19.06 g carbohydrate (14.34 g sugar)

Banana, 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long)
26.95 g carbohydrate (14.43 g sugar)

Grapes, 1 cup
27.33 g carbohydrate (23.37 g sugar)

Pear, 1 medium
25.66 g carbohydrate (16.27 g sugar)

Source: USDA Food and Nutrient Database

Fruit has many healthy components, of course, such as fiber, flavonoids, and vitamin C. But it also comes with plenty of sugar. This is especially true of modern fruit, the sort that has been cultivated, hybridized, fertilized, gassed, etc. for size and sugar content.

When you hear such conventional advice like "eat plenty of fruits and vegetables," you should hear instead: "eat plenty of vegetables. Eat a small quantity of fruit."

It's very important for people to understand the risks and benefits of certain foods, especially how they effect individuals differently. For instance; an athlete that is pique physical shape and is very healthy can probably get away with eating a ton of fruits. The benefits (antioxidants, vitamin c, bioflavonoids) outweigh the risks. However, a diabetic, and even individuals with insulin resistance, would not fare well on a diet allowing generous fruit consumption. The risks (sugar) outweigh the benefits.

Fruits in the morning to restore glycogen levels would be good and after post-workout (high intensity workouts only), but it's best to stick with vegetables during the remaining waking hours, especially if you are overweight.

Everyone gets caught up on the benefits of fruits...the vitamins and such...but we have to remember that fruits sucrose rich (fructose/glucose), which is a very dangerous sugar in high doses.

-Dev

Thanks for the info. I have been continually diagnosed as pre-diabetes or borderline for 30 years. When I was 6 there were many trials ran and it was extremely high but, just leveled off one day. Whenever I do blood tests now my blood sugar is listed as slightly high or slightly low.

Originally posted by toochaos4u
Thanks for the info. I have been continually diagnosed as pre-diabetes or borderline for 30 years. When I was 6 there were many trials ran and it was extremely high but, just leveled off one day. Whenever I do blood tests now my blood sugar is listed as slightly high or slightly low.

See your doctor and don't rely on internet 'wisdom'.....that really messed me up in the beginning.. Blood tests are not exact...they can be + or - 10 points or so when testing. It's the average we should be concerned with. Anyway just regulate your carbs and see your doctor regularly and follow their direction.

Good health to you friend.....

Well more bad news for me. Seems every time I turn around I have some other health issue. My recent blood work shows I have a low thyroid level. So frustrating....it's frigin scary for me to go to the doctor because I just assume some other problem will be found.

If I think positively I could say that because my health is so closely monitored and corrected I should be healthier than I would be otherwise because doctors can and will correct every little issue they see with my health. I know my grandfather is alive today in mis 90's because of some health issues found in his younger years.

Oh also I am have numbness in three of my fingers on my left hand....it's called peripheral neuropathy and it's scaring me to death. I also suspect it's messing with my digestion from my reading on issue.

Thanks for letting me talk here....