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Matt Stone again on diabetic control

http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com...s-sunshine.html

Quote:

I’m currently immersed in type II diabetes research. All the information on diets to treat and sometimes cure type II diabetes fall into 3 basic categories as far as I can tell.

Category 1 is the garden variety diabetes info. that is basically the same as the American Heart Association guidelines. This information is passed out to diabetics because they are at a tremendously elevated risk of getting heart disease. It differs little from the food pyramid hoo-ha, stressing lean meats, starchy carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, and a low intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. It doesn’t work for shit of course, prompting the medical world to deem diabetes an “incurable” ailment. It doesn’t stave off heart disease either. It is treatment, but certainly no cure for anything.

Category II is the low-carb stance of things. Richard Bernstein, Barry Groves – these guys advocate treating the symptom of high blood sugars by keeping carbohydrates at a minimum in an attempt to keep blood sugars low. Diabetes isn’t really a disease of high blood sugar though. That’s just the primary complication that comes at the end of a stew that’s been gurgling for quite some time. Diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance, where the body doesn’t respond to the insulin it produces, and the typical low-carb, high-protein, high-fat approach helps in the short-term. But it’s far from reliable as a cure for insulin resistance. People overcoming insulin resistance via low-carb diets are a rarity for sure. Plus, as reduced-carbohydrate advocate Diana Schwarzbein has noted, it has taken her years to get diabetic patients off of insulin and living a good, healthy life again.

Category III is where the name “Sunshine” comes into play. Neal Barnard, author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, is one of a handful of authors/health advisors that advocate a pretty strict vegetarian diet for diabetes. This diet consists of virtually no fat, low to moderate levels of protein – all plant-derived, and more or less unlimited amounts of carbohydrates. Gary Taubes would have a conniption over such advice, but much to his carb-phobic dismay, the general consensus is that an extremely high-carbohydrate vegan diet is, without a doubt, the quickest and most expedient way to get diabetics off of medication, undoing insulin resistance completely, and making them “undiabetic.”

The low-carb enthusiasts would of course have a diabetic feeling like such a diet is utter suicide. This is just about as idiotic as the low-fat vegan knobs having the world believe that eating meat and saturated fat is utter suicide. One side has a blind eye to the other. Fortunately, there are some folks out there with two eyes and the intellectual flexibility to use them both...

So to cut to the chase, I’m leaning towards highlighting an approach similar to that of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s in overcoming insulin resistance and becoming “undiabetic” in my next eBook on type II diabetes – due by the end of November. But I wanted to give it a little trial myself. So here I go for the next two weeks or more, while taking daily glucose readings first thing in the morning to track my progress...

Yep, you got it. I’m going to eat nothing with fins, fur, feathers, faces, or feelings a la Fuhrman. It’ll be roughly 80% carb, 10-15% protein, and 5-10% fat.

To add an interesting twist – something that I’ve found extremely compelling since Sista Pooti (her blog is no longer available, sorry) went pure carnivore (zero carb/FUMP) and had higher blood sugars than when carbs were in her diet…

...My girlfriend will be simultaneously eating an extremely low-carb diet and testing her blood sugars along the journey as well. We test at the same time, before breakfast every morning. After the first day in which I ate several cups of brown rice, 2 quarts of starchy vegetable soup, five pieces of fruit, and a huge bowl of oatmeal (at least 600 grams of carbs), I’ve got her beat by a whopping 15 mg/dl. (Keep in mind she’s been eating low-carb for over 3 years now - but is now dropping them to near zero).

High carb = 84 mg/dl

Low carb = 99 mg/dl

I'm very interested to see where his experiment leads.

Yeah, I'm following him too. :)

Patrick

Why is it surprising that people on high carb diets can have lower fasting BG than someone who's adapted to low-carb? Hypoglycemia is a sign of incipient diabetes.

I'd be a lot more interested in comparing insulin levels, triglycerides and stability of both BG and insulin. A few points of glucose within normal range doesn't seem much to hang a judgement on.

Honestly, since he is merely reading other people and has zero medical qualifications I don't think he should be putting out books on anything related to diabetes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wyvrn

This is a good point. GCBC has a section where he talks about how the diabetic community got all excited about studies that show good blood sugar control with high carbs - it can be done, but at the cost of excessive high insulin all day long for some people.

If you can keep total energy in line, no fat gain. But you have to toe the line with sat fat (pure energy) and excess carb for your activity. If you have too much fat or carb, fat gain.

But because there is no way to measure the insulin damage easily, it is not measured.

See what Peter from Hyperlipid says about higher BG readings in low carbers and how they mean something different than from diabetics.

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot....resistance.html

Quote:

A LC eater has a FBG of 5.5mmol/l, technically pre diabetic, but blood insulin is 3.5 IU/ml. This is VERY low. Glucose is in very short supply but blood glucose is maintained by physiological insulin resistance, ie the muscles are full of triglycerides assembled from free fatty acids (NEFA) from lipolysis. The LC eater has breakfast, with enough protein from his eggs or particularly casein from his yoghurt to raise insulin from 3.5 IU/ml to 5.0IU/ml. This inhibits lipolysis enough to reduce NEFA in the bloodstream, intramuscular triglycerides fall and muscle insulin sensitivity returns. There's minimal glucose coming from the gut and so plasma glucose drops to between 4.0 and 5.0mmol/l, probably nearer 4.0mmol/l. It fluctuates between 4.0 and 5.0 after and between each LC meal. In the early hours of the morning there is a growth hormone surge and NEFA from lipolysis peak early morning to give insulin resistant muscles and an elevated FBG.

MEAN glucose over 24h will be in 4 point somethingish, HbA1c will be between 4 and 5%. INSULIN will probably average out around 5-10 IU/ml, averaged out over 24h.

A SAD eater has a FBG of 5.5, prediabetic, because he is prediabetic. His muscles and liver are permanently and pathologically insulin resistant. His pancreas is cranking out 50 IU/ml of insulin to just keep that FBG in the 5.5mmol/l range. He eats bagels, jam and a large mocha for breakfast and his blood glucose hits 15mmol/l. His pancreas ups the insulin output as high as it can get it, perhaps to 150 IU/ml and just manages to to get blood glucose back down to 5.5mmol/l before lunch. Lunch is pasta and the cycle repeats.

Mean glucose over 24 hours will be between 7 and 12mmol/l. HbA1c might just hover around 7%. INSULIN will average 100 IU/ml over the 24 hours.

Helicobacter lives on the hydrogen from flatus, so is present in far too high a number for health in our flatulent carb eater and chronically irritates the gastric lining. Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) receptor is over expressed and converts disorderly proliferation of gastric mucosa in to gastric cancer. See here.

Insulin acts on IGF-1 receptor to achieve this transformation.

A high carb eater with FBG of 5.5mmol/l implies chronic hyperinsulinaemia, 24/7 and is looking for something to die from.

A LC, very high fat eater with a FBG of 5.5mmol/l implies they haven't had breakfast yet. They are not going to be hyperinsulinaemic at any stage. Unless they eat a bagel instead of their normal bacon and eggs that is. If they do this their blood glucose will hit 10mmol/l before insulin can shut down lipolysis and get the muscle accepting glucose.

It's NOT the FBG of 5.5mmol/l that matters. It's what that means about insulinaemia if you are eating a rice based diet. It's bad. The Kitavans eat a sweet potato based diet, are not insulin resistant and have FBG of 3 point something.

Does that clarify matters? Did I screw up in terms of clarity in the posts on physiological insulin resistance and H. pylori? If so, I'd better get a new post up!

Thinking in terms of FBG = 5.5mmol/l = huge cancer risk is thinking like a cardiologist. Don't go there. Think why, think holistically.

Peter

It's a bit technical (understatement!) but this here is key:

Quote:

So, we're insulin resistant because we have so little glucose in our blood and very little insulin too. As soon as we break our fast, then those numbers will drop lower a couple hours later. So a highish FBG for a low carber means, they're just a low carber who hasn't had breakfast yet.

A SAD eater, pre-diabetic, will have high blood glucose AND high insulin. His muscles and liver are permanently insulin resistant, not temporarily like a LCer.

So if you're LC, rely on an A1C test, not necessarily a FBG test.

Let me see if I understand correctly.

Two undiabetic people are going to follow opposing diabetic diets for two weeks and measure their blood sugar every morning while doing it.

I wonder what it is they hope to learn? :D

http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com...of-sunny-d.html

Quote:

By the way, I don’t expect any massive, life-changing conclusions to come of this experiment. I’ve already decided to at least elaborate upon Fuhrman-style dieting for Diabetes in my upcoming eBook on the subject. There’s no question that it’s worth mentioning. It’s worth much more than mentioning actually, and I love the way in which it turns the carbs = insulin = diabetes theory of Atkins, Eades, Taubes, Lutz, etc. on its head.

Humm I'd like to know how this works exactly. :o

Patrick

Quote:

http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com...of-sunny-d.html
By the way, I don’t expect any massive, life-changing conclusions to come of this experiment.

I fail to see where any conclusions, inferences, possibilities, or hypotheses whatsoever could come from the experiment.

I think maybe his eating is frying his brain.

What makes him qualified to go on about medical opinions?

The man is READING OTHER PEOPLE and from this, deciding he is an expert.

I understand he is young, and that is part of his charm, but arrogance+immaturity when it comes to serious medical issues is not a small thing.

It's one thing and bad enough to really just be a loud wannabe when it comes to weight loss. It's completely inappropriate to be getting directly into areas of life-threatening disease. Like he has any clue, like he has any way of getting any clue. He can just read other people and have an opinion. Better to point people at whomever he is reading in his weekly change of mind, frankly, since he personally has no qualifications for talking about treatment of disease.

PJ

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com...of-sunny-d.html

Humm I'd like to know how this works exactly. :o

Patrick

Yeah, it doesn't. Sometimes I think Matt Stone is not too smart and doesn't quite understand all he reads.

As Peter at Hyperlipid wrote recently

Quote:

... anyone who follows Stephan's blog or any of the Kitava posts here will realise that very high carbohydrate diets per se are not the problem. The problem is failure to maintain efficient glucose usage at physiological concentrations of insulin.

Quote:

High carb = 84 mg/dl

Low carb = 99 mg/dl

Taken like this, high carb looks better, doesn't it? Until we learn that the blood glucose measurement is done two hours after eating. If it was done immediately after eating, or even during the meal, not only would the numbers be reversed, it would look really bad for high carb.

When eating zero carb, or very little carb, blood glucose barely rises immediately after the meal. This is due to insulin's action on blood glucose combined with the lack of incoming carbohydrate, which in turn fails to make blood glucose rises. If anything, eating zero carb will cause blood glucose to drop during and after a meal. Some time after that, oh let's say two hours, hormones will kick in and slowly return blood glucose to normal range. That's quite different from what a high carb meal does, isn't it? We eat carbs, blood glucose rises above normal, insulin kicks in, and blood glucose slowly drops back down to normal range. But all this time before it happens, blood glucose was artificially (i.e. from the meal and not the body itself) maintained above normal range.

Two-hour-post-meal measurement is about as reliable as looking at somebody from ten feet away. It only gives us a glimpse of what's really going on. It doesn't tell us, for instance, how much and how long blood glucose stays above normal over the entire day. In other words, it doesn't tell us how big the area is under the curve.

There is a way to measure this curve. Test blood glucose as often as possible once the meal starts until two hours post meal. But that would be too simple. It would teach us too much about blood glucose.

The quote from Peter of HyperLipid is very interesting. Particularly the part about IGF increasing risk of cancer.

But because I have an inquiring mind, I have to ask myself...if carbs = insulin = IGF = increased cell division = cancer....then why the heck do 7th Day Adventists on their HIGH carb diets have such LOW cancer rates?

No matter how "logical" an argument may sound, I simply cannot ignore common-sense observations like that.

Well said Jeff. Observations cannot be ignored. All observations must be explained by an hypothesis, otherwise said hypothesis is invalid and not even worthy of being tested.

Patrick