This article states that Dr Dean Ornish's diet (low fat, high carb) is the best for controlling insulin levels in the body. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I thought that lowering carbs would lower insulin levels....

http://www.jsonline.com/alive/news/nov03/183907.asp

I read the article and it irked me. Sorry if my rant sounds like a lecture . . .

Doctors and journalists are so quick to analyze "findings" from studies without pausing to consider all of the information left out such as the type of person selected for each diet, the number of dieters, their health risk factors, the numbers of calories consumed, the activity levels of the dieters, their resolve, instructions to the patients, etc. All we know is that all of the participants were morbidly obese.

The conclusion is that the diets are all equal, but I take that to task. Half of the Ornish diet populace dropped out. Lots of the people on Atkins and the Zone cheated. Does that prove anything? If the diets were followed 100%, I'm sure the findings would vary substantially. In fact, all I think this "study" proved is that nothing was proven. The target of the study was to see what diet led to the most weight loss and reduced heart disease risks. Cholesterol levels varied but then cholesterol is a mystery substance. It could be a leading indicator for heart disease risk. Then again, there are too many people with really high cholesterol and no history of heart disease to make any claims whatsoever.

Weight loss is another issue. Did the people exercise? How much? Was the reason for minimal weight loss because people gained muscle mass? Was their any history of thyroid conditions in these people?

Regarding the question on insulin, if you read real scientific research and not some fru-fru comparison study, under higher protein, high(er) fat diets, insulin levels will be regulated more than with high carb diets. This is a straight forward statement as carbohydrates almost immediately upon consumption cause blood sugar levels to rise, which leads to a rise in insulin. With ingestion of mostly protein and fat, insulin doesn't have the occasion to rise so quickly. A real world example are the Eskimos. When they switched to western high-carb diets, diabetes rates grew substantially.

Dang, I thought I posted this once already, don't see it here - anyhow, it turns out that with high blood sugar levels, which you would expect a person on Ornish to have, get this, the HIGHER the blood sugar, the lower the insulin. A study done on diabetic pima indians showed that insulin was LOWEST at about 160-70 (remember these were all diabetics) and dropped to its lowest point at the 400 blood sugar level. So, it is possible to have poor blood sugar control, and low insulin levels. The article bragging about "insulin control" did not mention blood sugar levels, wonder why? Looks to me, like the study having shown that the Ornish diet basically had no improvement on heart risk profiles, they were grabbing any number that could be made to look like an improvement.Ornish has always been very evasive about his diet and diabetes, he claims to have 'helped' a number of them. No specifics, no fasting bg's, medication records, just vague talk about tinkering with the kinds of carbs. Bill

Sorry, I am really messing this up - that should have read, HIGHEST at the low sugar levels, LOWEST at the High Bg's. Again, the point is, people with lousy sugar control, which you get from eating a rice and beans diet like ornish's, can have low insulin levels. Doubt it proves anything.

I eat fatty meats. I cook with fats and I add butter, not margarine, to all my veggies. My glucose is 98/triglycerides are 49/cholesterol total is159.

My conclusion is-I must be from Jupiter.

Black57

Hey, black57, you are a mutant, like me!
And there are millions of us...
Dr. Bernstein has spent a whole second career explaining why carb restriction works for diabetes.

http://www.diabetes-normalsugars.com/

It is very hard to analyze this study, because there are no real facts in it. But one thing stood out: they lost only 10-12 pounds? I lost that in my first month on Atkins. So what is going on?

I would take this article with a large grain of salt...and a tenderloin steak.

I would add a little pepper to that steak!

My numbers are very much like Black57's and I do eat a lot of fats (butter, olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, avocados, meat...etc.)

Very vague study...like others have said...doesn't prove anything!

I am doing Atkins. My biggest food mistake was abusing carbs. I know that I do not need that many carbs. I have had crazy insulin spikes and sugar drops from not balancing my carbohydrates. Now that I have increased my fats and protein while greatly lowering my carbs, I have stable insulin levels. I have discovered that by keeping my insulin stable on a low carb diet I have also achieved excellent lipid balance as well. Also, it was a pharmacist that first told me that the best thing for hypoglycemia was protein. I believe that pharmacist are more hip to human physiology.