Diabetes Diet War (Hint: High carbing doesn't work)

US News ^ | 7/14/03 | Dara Mayers

[Nov3]

Diabetes diet war
The nutrition advice given to most diabetics might be killing them

By Dara Mayers
The bible says "make starches the star." That's the Diabetes Food and Nutrition Bible, published by the American Diabetes Association. "Grains, beans, and starchy vegetables form the foundation of the Diabetes Food Pyramid. The message is to eat more of these foods than of any of the other food groups." For 17 million Americans with diabetes, diet is a crucial part of treatment, And what the ADA bible preaches, many doctors, nutritionists, and patients believe.

But what if the ADA's high-starch diet--another way of saying high-carbohydrate--is not healthy for people with diabetes but harmful to them instead?

This possibility is now the source of heated debate in the diabetes community. It is "the most controversial aspect of diabetes treatment today," says Scott King, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Interview magazine. How controversial? "Malpractice!" is how physician and diabetes specialist Lois Jovanovic, chief scientific officer of the Sansum Medical Research Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., describes conventional high-carb nutrition advice.

Excerpted, click for full article

[netmilsmom]

Thank you all for the well wishes about my mom. She was a great lady (I named my oldest daughter after her). I really feel that she would not have had the heart problems she had if she had not constantly been starving herself. I think her body used her muscles as the protein she needed.

Gary, part of the problem with the way that society looks at overweight people is that they constantly tell us that we "just need not to overeat." It gives the illusion that not eating is good and eating is bad. It makes anorexia and bullimia look mighty good. When one does either one of these, the body says, "I'm starving!!!" and goes into that mode. This is why most dancers (who work out majorly) can sustain body weight and eat very little. Yes, you are right, food puts weight on but when the doctors are telling you, carbs are great and they become sugar in your body so you do not lose with the same amount of calories that you would eating protein, it is pretty discouraging.

Now stare at losing 100 lbs and see how it looks....

[A_perfect_lady]

Oh, yeah, I'm fine now, that stuff was gone by Thanksgiving. I sailed through the holidays on one piece of pumpkin pie and lost a few pounds while my family and friends were putting them on! LOL!

[Robert Drobot]

Bump

[Johnny Gage]

The first few days when the carbs are leaving my system I crave really strange things that I don't normally eat

I recently started the "induction phase" of Atkins again, and yes.. after about 48 hours, I was having MAJOR CARB withdrawl. I was craving chocolate, ice cream, pasta, chips you name it.. it was awful.. after another 48 hours it subsided and I started feeling better.

My problem is after about 5 lbs of weight loss, I plateau, and that's a real test of patience. I really need to get out and start walking again, that helps a lot.

[Jeff Chandler]

Fat people find it difficult to exercise because of their excess weight. It's like carrying a load around with them. It's very discouraging for them, but it is also a lack of self-discipline which accounts for the intitial aversion to physical exertion and the overeating. Once the weight is on, it becomes a vicious "chicken and egg" cycle.

Most fat people are not in the same category as you. You have a medical condition that creates a weight problem, while they often have medical conditions that are caused by their weight problems.

We are in agreement on weight and diabetes problems being caused/exacerbated by high carb foods.

[Johnny Gage]

Yep, and go buy a bottle of potassium supplements as well.

I bought a good multi vitamin, and separate magnesium and potassium tablets, because the multi doesn't have a high enough dose.

Calcium could help those cramps too.

[Gary Boldwater]

I think carbs cause insulin to spike. Insulin increases fat storage and causes other imbalances in the endocrine system.

One thing people do to loose weight is gastric bypass surgery. It's risky and after it one must eat a very good diet because the food intake is so small.

I don't think reducing my weight 100 lbs would be very good for me. By the Body Mass Index (BMI) chart I'm obese but I don't place much value on the chart.

[jennyp]

It's bad enough the FDA wants us to all eat like cows, but for the American Diabetic Assn. to go even further is stunning! I agree with the doctor in the article who said this:

This possibility is now the source of heated debate in the diabetes community. It is "the most controversial aspect of diabetes treatment today," says Scott King, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Interview magazine. How controversial? "Malpractice!" is how physician and diabetes specialist Lois Jovanovic, chief scientific officer of the Sansum Medical Research Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., describes conventional high-carb nutrition advice.

(I say this as someone who is against all the frivolous class action lawsuits flying around these days, such as the anti-fat lawsuits and the anti-smoking jihad.)

[retrokitten]

One thing I have heard about the gastric bypass is that if people eat high carb or high sugar food that they get sick. So, most people who have had the surgery end up eating low-carb anyway. Anyone know if that is true?

There was a show on Discovery (could have been TLC, I get them confused) about a girl who had the gastric bypass. I had seen it before and it is very interesting.

[jennyp]

Well I figured I'd give this low-carb thing a try. So I went low-carb on April 1 and have lost 51 pounds since. If anybody out there was a skeptic like me, I urge you to give it a try. I never did the Atkins plan with the ketosis and all. But I did cut carbs out of my diet as much as I could as well as all junk and processed foods (which are loaded with carbs). I now have eggs every morning for breakfast and lots of steak and other meats. What a difference. Wish I'd done this 10 years ago.

Whoa, Sam! Weren't you one of the naysayers on the Atkins threads a few months back? But - that would mean you changed your mind about something due to FR threads. That's not allowed, is it? :-D

[jennyp]

That's all we do-no counting carbs or calories, no deal-a-meal, no low-fat worries-just restrict the very high carb foods. The idea is to change our eating habits in a way that is so simple that we can actually follow through.

I think that approach should work just as well as the standard one of the 2-week boot camp, er, induction phase, followed by gradual loosening up of the diet. After all, like you say it is supposed to be the kind of diet you can live with for the rest of your life. (Which I think it definitely is.)

For me, I just try to avoid the white carby foods, and otherwise make sure the proteins in a meal end up greater than the carbs. I trust the fats to take care of themselves. It works great for me & hubby.

10/99: 163->146->155->140->???

[Nov3]

What ever happened to just eating right and exercising?

Yeah, but nobody ever made any money by advocating such a simple idea.

How deluded you are. The grain industry lobbied the US government to be at the base of the Food Pyramid. This is a fact. Our current government recommendations for "eating right" were created by corporations seeking larger profits, not unbiased health professionals.

[Cooter]

Do you take any oil suppliments, like Omega-3 or 6?

[Jeff Chandler]

>>Now stare at losing 100 lbs and see how it looks....<<

At the risk of being labeled as trite, you're looking at it the wrong way. Look at it as replacing unhealthy habits with healthy ones. The low-carb regimen appears to be effective, but if you focus on losing weight you could become impatient and give up, and when you do lose weight you may revert to old habits. This is elementary, and everyone has heard it a thousand times, but it is true.

What difference does it make if it takes two or three years to get back to a healthy weight if you can stay there the rest of your life? I've seen people do it.

[jennyp]

I lost about 25 pounds on Atkins about a year and a half ago and have since gained it back. I just started yesterday to get back on program. The first 2-3 days are the hardest!!!

Good luck, retrokitten! Don't give up. If you start bouncing back again, examine closely what particular foods you're eating. For me, I dropped 17 lbs, then gained half of it back. Then we stopped eating ice cream for dessert. (OK, stop snickering, it was our nightly carbo-reward. :-)

We also stopped eating peanuts, which had become our favorite snack food. In both cases we had kept eating more & more each day. So we cut them out of our diet. Since then I slowly lost weight again, and today I'm 23 lbs (and one dress size - woohoo!) lower than when I started.

[krunkygirl]

My son is a Type 1 diabetic--thank you, I will check out this book and see what I can learn that will help him.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>I just try to avoid the white carby foods, and otherwise make sure the proteins in a meal end up greater than the carbs. <<

That sounds simple enough.


>>I trust the fats to take care of themselves.<<

I don't worry about fats either. With our system I can eat a Jumbo Jack for lunch, but no freedom fries, and I have a high-carb portion left over, so I can have a dollop of mashed potatoes with dinner. If I get a little hungry between meals, I have a stick of beef jerky, or a handful of peanuts, or a tin of sardines or some other yummy protein food.

[netmilsmom]

>>What difference does it make if it takes two or three years to get back to a healthy weight if you can stay there the rest of your life? I've seen people do it.<<

Have you done it???

[jennyp]

The only downside: my cholesterol has jumped from 212 to 248. My doc wants a "lipid panel" done to see what's up with HDL and LDL quantities. Smalll price to pay, actually, and it's easily controlled with food changes and meds, I hear.

I didn't get a lipid panel before I started the diet so I don't know what my baseline was, but here are my numbers:

JennyP's numbers since going on a low-carb diet

Date	Mos. into diet	Weight	BMI	Total	HDL	LDL	Total/HDL	Triglycerides
10/20/99	0	163	24.8	unknown - wish I had tested beforehand
4/21/00	6	147	22.3	244	76	158	3.2	48
3/20/01	17	156	23.7	241	74	149	3.3	90
5/15/02	31	154	23.4	219	78	128	2.8	66
6/09/03	44	141	21.4	233	77	143	3.0	66

After losing 1 lb per week, I plateaued at 17 lbs below starting weight. Then I drifted upwards over the next year to around 8 lbs below starting weight. Then I cut out ice cream for dessert (we couldn't resist giving ourselves bigger & bigger portions over the months!) & my since then my weight has drifted back down to 23 lbs below starting weight. I also switched to a canola-based margarine, but recently I couldn't find any; perhaps that's why my total cholesterol number came down last year but then has drifted back up.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>Have you done it???<<

I'm actually pretty close to a healthy weight right now, and have never been more than 20 pounds overweight, but I know people who have lost enormous amounts of weight and have kept it off.