Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - 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