STUDY: Low Carb Diet Improves Glucose Control in Diabetics

Roger,

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

It was because of this that when evidence was brought forward that high fat
diets correlated with heart disease that doctors began to warn diabetics
away from high fat/low carb diets.

The fact is that we have not had the studies needed to establish what diet
works best for diabetics.

As I see it, the biggest problem with recommending low carb to people with
diabetes is that not everyone had the self-control you and I might have.
You have only to watch your friends who think they are low carbing chowing
down on "low carb" cookies and "forgetting" to count carbs in salad
dressing, snack chips and ice cream to realize that it is very easy for a
sloppy person to "low carb" at levels over 100 grams a day. If they are
combining 140 grams of carbs a day with a diet that is 60% fat, they are
headed for disaster. There are good studies to support this.

It is only when carbs are brought down very low that fat can be eaten
safely. The combination of fat and carbs is dangerous to cardiovascular
health and to pancreas beta cells. Getting people to stick to a low carb
diet for many years is challenging. If people absorb the idea that "fat is
good" without getting the part about how "fat is good when carbs are under
60 grams a day" they may end up with the heart disease that was the reason
that the low carb diets of the past (which were set around 60 grams a day or
higher) fell into disuse.

We need a lot of very detailed studies to look at what really works for
diabetics. Most importantly, we need more studies about the blood sugar
levels at which heart disease begins to see whether diabetics who maintain
blood sugar levels below some critical point avoid heart disease.

In short, there is not enough evidence to determine whether is it the
carb/fat combination or the actual blood sugar level that damages blood
vessels. There is some evidence that keeping blood sugars under 100 mg/dl
may avoid heart disease (UKPDS data on hba1c and heart attack risk).
However, not all diabetics can keep blood sugars under 100 mg/dl even while
low carbing very strenuously. I can't.

Do you still check your blood sugars after meals, btw?

-- Jenny - Low Carbing for 5 years. Below goal for weight. Type 2 diabetes,
hba1c 5.7 .
Cut the carbs to respond to my email address!

Jenny's new site: What they Don't Tell You About Diabetes
http://www.geocities.com/lottadata4u/

Jenny's Low Carb Diet Facts & Figures
http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/

Looking for help controlling your blood sugar?
Visit http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/...0Diagnosed.htm


"Roger Zoul" wrote in message
...
Jennifer wrote:
|| Roger Zoul wrote:
||
||| Bernstein write books about the topic...Atkins and others have
||| written on the matter...the notion of them finally, at this late
||| date, coming to such conclusions means, imo, then they can't be
||| trusted.
|||
||| Jennifer wrote:
||||| It may not be new to us... but it means there are more studies
||||| that give
||||| credence to what we've all been saying.
|||||
||||| Jennifer
||
||
|| Neither Atkins nor Bernstein did back up studies to coroborate their
|| clinical findings.
||
|| Again... we know them to be valid because we live it.
||
|| Having hard evidence is the only way to create a climate of real
|| acceptance.

Hard evidence? Eating less stuff that becomes sugar in the body results
in
better blood sugar control? It's obvious.

Hard evidence? That's what got this country believing and eating a low fat
diet for years, that resulted in worst health and more obesity than ever.
Is that what you call hard evidence?

||
|| It's not a "late date" for the rest of the world. We are just the
|| pioneers.
||

Nonsense. How can we be pioneers when there are several books that have
been promoting these issues for years? If you were following a LC WOE 30
years ago you were a pioneer then. Not following the mainstream doesn't
make one a pioneer.

|| Why are you so against studies that validate this WOE?

I'm not agaisnt studies at all. However, I am against silly ones that
state
obvious conclusions and then go on to say more studies are needed before
they can bless a way of eating that leaves out grains, potatos, and bean?
It's like they are just trying to stay employed.

It seems to be that we live in a society where we have to have a
scienfitic
study to tell us it okay to do anything. Hard scienfitic evidence! Can't
do anything without it, and don't believe it if it's not there. But we
have
had years and years of "evidence" that was wrong and went without
challenge
and then became the gospel truth. It would be more honest if they would
just say "Hey, these results are really obvious and should have been
demonstrated years ago, but people had blinders on or didn't really want
this information widely known, for whatever reasons."

"Jenny" wrote in message
...
Roger,

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low
carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

I've just read a report that Annette posted (not sure which group) that said
that middle-aged women diabetics had a 3-fold chance of getting heart
disease. I assumed they meant the usual "diabetics with poor control", but
actually not - the 3-fold increase was for people with good control; the
risk for people with poor control was increased 9-fold. I don't remember
what diet these women were on, but that's very scary correlated with your
author's comments.

Nicky.

--
HgBA1C 10.5/6.4/6 Weight 95/83/72
1g Metformin, 75mg Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

Nicky,

The problem is that "good control" is defined in all current studies as
having an hba1c of under 7.0%

That hba1c correlates to an average blood sugar of 150 mg/dl. To achieve
that average a person can be routinely spiking up to 200 mg/dl and then
dropping back to 100 hours later. That, to me is far from truly "good
control."

Truly good control would be an hba1c as close to 5% as possible, which would
be an average blood sugar of 100 mg/dl.

OTOH the NHANES III survey found that the typical American diabetic has an
hba1c near 10%.


-- Jenny - Low Carbing for 5 years. Below goal for weight. Type 2 diabetes,
hba1c 5.7 .
Cut the carbs to respond to my email address!

Jenny's new site: What they Don't Tell You About Diabetes
http://www.geocities.com/lottadata4u/

Jenny's Low Carb Diet Facts & Figures
http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/

Looking for help controlling your blood sugar?
Visit http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/...0Diagnosed.htm


"Nicky" wrote in message
...

"Jenny" wrote in message
...
Roger,

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing
for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low
carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

I've just read a report that Annette posted (not sure which group) that
said
that middle-aged women diabetics had a 3-fold chance of getting heart
disease. I assumed they meant the usual "diabetics with poor control", but
actually not - the 3-fold increase was for people with good control; the
risk for people with poor control was increased 9-fold. I don't remember
what diet these women were on, but that's very scary correlated with your
author's comments.

Nicky.

--
HgBA1C 10.5/6.4/6 Weight 95/83/72
1g Metformin, 75mg Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

"Jenny" wrote in message
...
Nicky,

The problem is that "good control" is defined in all current studies as
having an hba1c of under 7.0%

That hba1c correlates to an average blood sugar of 150 mg/dl.

Jenny,

I'm going mad - it wasn't Annette, but Robert Miles who posted the link,
over on mhd - http://www.healthscout.com/news/322/521085/main.html

"Overall, the women with diabetes had a threefold higher risk of getting
heart failure than did the women without diabetes, Bibbins-Domingo said."

They quote good control here as an fbg between 80-150 mg/dl - they don't
quote a1c figures - and I find that scary because mine hovers around the 104
mark. With my bg meter dictating a diet that runs to 50-60g carbs a day, I
don't like the implications of a low carb diet being associated with an
increased risk of heart disease, as your correspondent implies.

OTOH, I'd rather go out with a bang rather than suffer the opathies... just
I'd planned to do it in about 60 years' time...

Nicky.

--
HgBA1C 10.5/6.4/6 Weight 95/83/72
1g Metformin, 75ug Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

Jenny wrote:

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

It was because of this that when evidence was brought forward that high fat
diets correlated with heart disease that doctors began to warn diabetics
away from high fat/low carb diets.

My issue - It takes years to develop risk of heart disease and the
diet that increases heart disease risk also increases diabetes
risk. Just how much of that higher rate of heart attacks is
because they were already at high risk by the time they become
diabetic and switching to low carb was already too late?

The fact is that we have not had the studies needed to establish what diet
works best for diabetics.

Agreed with a caveat - No one diet will be best for every
diabetic just like no one diet will be best for every
non-diabetic.

As I see it, the biggest problem with recommending low carb to people with
diabetes is that not everyone had the self-control you and I might have.
You have only to watch your friends who think they are low carbing chowing
down on "low carb" cookies and "forgetting" to count carbs in salad
dressing, snack chips and ice cream to realize that it is very easy for a
sloppy person to "low carb" at levels over 100 grams a day. If they are
combining 140 grams of carbs a day with a diet that is 60% fat, they are
headed for disaster. There are good studies to support this.

Ain't it the truth. I walked through the ailse of "low carb"
items in the grocery store today and I was aghast.

Jenny,

I'm going mad - it wasn't Annette, but Robert Miles who posted the link,
over on mhd - http://www.healthscout.com/news/322/521085/main.html

"Overall, the women with diabetes had a threefold higher risk of getting
heart failure than did the women without diabetes, Bibbins-Domingo said."

They quote good control here as an fbg between 80-150 mg/dl - they don't
quote a1c figures - and I find that scary because mine hovers around the 104
mark. With my bg meter dictating a diet that runs to 50-60g carbs a day, I
don't like the implications of a low carb diet being associated with an
increased risk of heart disease, as your correspondent implies.

But Nicky...

That's a GIANT range of fasting BGs. What you get by corraling people
with 80-150 in the same group is many people in great control... and
many in terrible.

They may call 150 fasting "good"... but it ain't.

If they had broken out the results of their study into smaller
increments (80-100) (101-120) (121- 140) (141 +) I think you'd see the
folks who keep their BGs "normal" have a different outcome.

In addition, FBG may not be the best indication of glycemic control and
future complications.

Here's a study that corolates post prandial readings and mortality from
heart disease... maybe this will make you feel better:

Post-Meal Glucose Levels Better Predictors of Premature Mortality
than Fasting Glucose or HbA1c

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO -- November 7, 2000 - A new study indicates that
two-hour blood glucose (2h-BG) levels are better predictors for
all-cause mortality than either fasting plasma glucose (FPG) or
hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). The study, which was presented here at the 17th
International Diabetes Federation Congress, provides further validation
of 2h-BG as an independent risk factor for death from heart disease.

The data underscore the significance of mealtime glucose "spikes" which
result from the body's inability to produce an early insulin response
after a meal. The acute toxicity of glucose spikes, as measured by 2h-BG
levels, is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and
mortality and a better predictor than FPG, as seen in the published
research from the European DECODE study group. Cardiovascular disease is
a serious complication, causing a large proportion of deaths in people
with type 2 diabetes.

"These data further support the DECODE findings, but also demonstrate
that two-hour blood glucose is a better predictor of mortality than
HbA1c. This is true not just for cardiovascular mortality, but for death
from all causes," observed Jaakko Tuomilehto, M.D., Professor of Public
Health at the University of Helsinki and at the Diabetes and Genetic
Epidemiology Unit of the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki,
Finland. "Because of this correlation, it will be important for the
control of mealtime glucose spikes to be a goal in diabetes management."

In healthy adults, the pancreas produces an early burst of insulin to
metabolise the extra glucose following a meal. This early insulin
response is the body's first defense against mealtime glucose spikes and
post-meal hyperglycaemia. In contrast, in people with type 2 diabetes, a
primary defect is the loss of early insulin secretion, ultimately
resulting in mealtime glucose spikes. Because these spikes are not felt
by the patient, they are a hidden threat already in the early stages of
type 2 diabetes.

In the study presented here, Prof. Tuomilehto and colleagues from
Finland and the Netherlands conducted multivariate analyses of data from
1,412 men and 1,276 women enrolled in three different diabetes clinical
trials. The analyses assessed the relative value of three glucose
variables - HbA1c, FPG and 2h-BG, measured alone and in combination - as
predictors for all-cause mortality.

A total of 256 deaths were observed in men and 98 deaths occurred among
women, and all three variables were associated with increased mortality
when assessed individually.

Whereas neither FPG nor HbA1c added statistically significant
information to the 2hr-BG regression model, the addition of 2h-BG to the
models for either of the other variables (FPG and HbA1c) significantly
improved the ability of the models to predict risk of death.

The superiority of 2h-BG as a predictor of mortality was also
demonstrated in a model assessing the relative risk for all three
variables simultaneously.

"This study firmly establishes two-hour blood glucose as a predictor for
mortality in type 2 diabetes," Dr. Tuomilehto concluded. "While HbA1c is
a good indicator of a long-term glycemia, it fails to mark the mealtime
glucose excursions that have many acute effects deleterious to the
cardiovascular system. The data highlight the importance of monitoring
post-meal glucose levels, as well as the need for treatment regimens
that specifically target mealtime hyperglycaemia and restore an early
insulin response."


Jennifer

Jenny wrote:
|| Roger,
||
|| I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is
|| extremely knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain
|| anonymous. The writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem
|| with low carbing for diabetes is that through the first half of the
|| 20th century when low carbing was prescribed for diabetics, those
|| diabetics died of heart disease at a much higher rate than the
|| normal population.

But why? Did they really follow LC?

||
|| It was because of this that when evidence was brought forward that
|| high fat diets correlated with heart disease that doctors began to
|| warn diabetics away from high fat/low carb diets.
||
|| The fact is that we have not had the studies needed to establish
|| what diet works best for diabetics.

Certainly a diet high in carbs doesn't work well.

||
|| As I see it, the biggest problem with recommending low carb to
|| people with diabetes is that not everyone had the self-control you
|| and I might have. You have only to watch your friends who think they
|| are low carbing chowing down on "low carb" cookies and "forgetting"
|| to count carbs in salad dressing, snack chips and ice cream to
|| realize that it is very easy for a sloppy person to "low carb" at
|| levels over 100 grams a day. If they are combining 140 grams of
|| carbs a day with a diet that is 60% fat, they are headed for
|| disaster. There are good studies to support this.

Certainly....
||
|| It is only when carbs are brought down very low that fat can be eaten
|| safely. The combination of fat and carbs is dangerous to
|| cardiovascular health and to pancreas beta cells.

Right.

Getting people to
|| stick to a low carb diet for many years is challenging. If people
|| absorb the idea that "fat is good" without getting the part about
|| how "fat is good when carbs are under 60 grams a day" they may end
|| up with the heart disease that was the reason that the low carb
|| diets of the past (which were set around 60 grams a day or higher)
|| fell into disuse.

Makes sense. Instead of LCing, these people were following the SAD...it's a
known killer. However, recommendations were made based on not having full
information. It was assumed that it must be the fat that was bad, not the
carbs or the combination of the two. Is that the way researchers and
authority figures are supposed to create policy?

||
|| We need a lot of very detailed studies to look at what really works
|| for diabetics. Most importantly, we need more studies about the
|| blood sugar levels at which heart disease begins to see whether
|| diabetics who maintain blood sugar levels below some critical point
|| avoid heart disease.

That would be a great study....bring it on.

||
|| In short, there is not enough evidence to determine whether is it the
|| carb/fat combination or the actual blood sugar level that damages
|| blood vessels. There is some evidence that keeping blood sugars
|| under 100 mg/dl may avoid heart disease (UKPDS data on hba1c and
|| heart attack risk). However, not all diabetics can keep blood sugars
|| under 100 mg/dl even while low carbing very strenuously. I can't.

Well, this is true. Different people have different degress of control. No
question about it. Bodies react differently. Diabetes behaves differently
with different people. There may be no one-size fits all solution. However,
I'd bet that LC still provides some control for most diabetics -- maybe not
enough to remove the need for meds for some, however.

||
|| Do you still check your blood sugars after meals, btw?

Yes. I still maintain good control via LC and exercise. My numbers with
drift upwards if I don't exercise and eat too many carbs.

If you think that I'm against studies, you're wrong.

||
|| -- Jenny - Low Carbing for 5 years. Below goal for weight. Type 2
|| diabetes, hba1c 5.7 .
|| Cut the carbs to respond to my email address!
||
|| Jenny's new site: What they Don't Tell You About Diabetes
|| http://www.geocities.com/lottadata4u/
||
|| Jenny's Low Carb Diet Facts & Figures
|| http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/
||
|| Looking for help controlling your blood sugar?
|| Visit http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/...0Diagnosed.htm
||
||
|| "Roger Zoul" wrote in message
|| ...
||| Jennifer wrote:
||||| Roger Zoul wrote:
|||||
|||||| Bernstein write books about the topic...Atkins and others have
|||||| written on the matter...the notion of them finally, at this late
|||||| date, coming to such conclusions means, imo, then they can't be
|||||| trusted.
||||||
|||||| Jennifer wrote:
|||||||| It may not be new to us... but it means there are more studies
|||||||| that give
|||||||| credence to what we've all been saying.
||||||||
|||||||| Jennifer
|||||
|||||
||||| Neither Atkins nor Bernstein did back up studies to coroborate
||||| their clinical findings.
|||||
||||| Again... we know them to be valid because we live it.
|||||
||||| Having hard evidence is the only way to create a climate of real
||||| acceptance.
|||
||| Hard evidence? Eating less stuff that becomes sugar in the body
||| results in better blood sugar control? It's obvious.
|||
||| Hard evidence? That's what got this country believing and eating a
||| low fat diet for years, that resulted in worst health and more
||| obesity than ever. Is that what you call hard evidence?
|||
|||||
||||| It's not a "late date" for the rest of the world. We are just the
||||| pioneers.
|||||
|||
||| Nonsense. How can we be pioneers when there are several books that
||| have been promoting these issues for years? If you were following
||| a LC WOE 30 years ago you were a pioneer then. Not following the
||| mainstream doesn't make one a pioneer.
|||
||||| Why are you so against studies that validate this WOE?
|||
||| I'm not agaisnt studies at all. However, I am against silly ones
||| that state obvious conclusions and then go on to say more studies
||| are needed before they can bless a way of eating that leaves out
||| grains, potatos, and bean? It's like they are just trying to stay
||| employed.
|||
||| It seems to be that we live in a society where we have to have a
||| scienfitic study to tell us it okay to do anything. Hard
||| scienfitic evidence! Can't do anything without it, and don't
||| believe it if it's not there. But we have had years and years of
||| "evidence" that was wrong and went without challenge and then
||| became the gospel truth. It would be more honest if they would
||| just say "Hey, these results are really obvious and should have
||| been demonstrated years ago, but people had blinders on or didn't
||| really want this information widely known, for whatever reasons."

"Jenny" wrote in message ...
Roger,

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

It was because of this that when evidence was brought forward that high fat
diets correlated with heart disease that doctors began to warn diabetics
away from high fat/low carb diets.

The subject of beta cell damage from exposure to high ffa and glucose
has already come up in this group. Without quantifying what was
"low" carb in these prescriptions it is impossible to assess them. I
suspect that these diets were high fruit.


The fact is that we have not had the studies needed to establish what diet
works best for diabetics.

What are the references to the history you describe above. It is the
first time I hear this and given that I pay attention to such details
I find it very suspicious and smacking of revisionism.


As I see it, the biggest problem with recommending low carb to people with
diabetes is that not everyone had the self-control you and I might have.
You have only to watch your friends who think they are low carbing chowing
down on "low carb" cookies and "forgetting" to count carbs in salad
dressing, snack chips and ice cream to realize that it is very easy for a
sloppy person to "low carb" at levels over 100 grams a day. If they are
combining 140 grams of carbs a day with a diet that is 60% fat, they are
headed for disaster. There are good studies to support this.

The current recommendations from the Canadian Diabetes Association are
much, much worse than this sort of discipline problem. Also, lack of
conformance to a diet implies nothing about its validity.


It is only when carbs are brought down very low that fat can be eaten
safely. The combination of fat and carbs is dangerous to cardiovascular
health and to pancreas beta cells.

It is high ffa levels that are dangerous and you can get them without
eating any fat whatsoever. In fact, ffa levels are higher on high
carb diets since the metabolism is always in a regime of glucose to
triglyceride conversion and storage. VLDL and LDL levels are high,
reflecting this transport.

Getting people to stick to a low carb
diet for many years is challenging. If people absorb the idea that "fat is
good" without getting the part about how "fat is good when carbs are under
60 grams a day" they may end up with the heart disease that was the reason
that the low carb diets of the past (which were set around 60 grams a day or
higher) fell into disuse.

There is no evidence to support the idea that the low fat diets are
better at controlling the onset of Type II diabetes. The opposite is
true, in the wake of the low fat, high carb hysteria foisted on
society by government do-gooders the incidence of Type II diabetes has
been rising dramatically.


We need a lot of very detailed studies to look at what really works for
diabetics. Most importantly, we need more studies about the blood sugar
levels at which heart disease begins to see whether diabetics who maintain
blood sugar levels below some critical point avoid heart disease.

In short, there is not enough evidence to determine whether is it the
carb/fat combination or the actual blood sugar level that damages blood
vessels. There is some evidence that keeping blood sugars under 100 mg/dl
may avoid heart disease (UKPDS data on hba1c and heart attack risk).
However, not all diabetics can keep blood sugars under 100 mg/dl even while
low carbing very strenuously. I can't.

High insulin changes the physical makeup of blood vessels promoting
smooth muscle tissue growth aka hardening of the arteries. Free
radicals damage blood vessel walls and beta cells. The studies
pertaining to ffa effects on beta cells have not established any
mechanism for the damage and have used polyunsaturated vegetable oils
to induce high ffa levels. It is about time that polyunsaturated
vegetable oils were treated as likely toxins in the body since they
are chemically unstable.

"Jenny" wrote in message ...
Roger,

I had a long talk recently with a well-respected writer who is extremely
knowledgeable about type 2 diabetes who wishes to remain anonymous. The
writer low carbs, but points out that the big problem with low carbing for
diabetes is that through the first half of the 20th century when low carbing
was prescribed for diabetics, those diabetics died of heart disease at a
much higher rate than the normal population.

It was because of this that when evidence was brought forward that high fat
diets correlated with heart disease that doctors began to warn diabetics
away from high fat/low carb diets.

The subject of beta cell damage from exposure to high ffa and glucose
has already come up in this group. Without quantifying what was
"low" carb in these prescriptions it is impossible to assess them. I
suspect that these diets were high fruit.


The fact is that we have not had the studies needed to establish what diet
works best for diabetics.

What are the references to the history you describe above. It is the
first time I hear this and given that I pay attention to such details
I find it very suspicious and smacking of revisionism.


As I see it, the biggest problem with recommending low carb to people with
diabetes is that not everyone had the self-control you and I might have.
You have only to watch your friends who think they are low carbing chowing
down on "low carb" cookies and "forgetting" to count carbs in salad
dressing, snack chips and ice cream to realize that it is very easy for a
sloppy person to "low carb" at levels over 100 grams a day. If they are
combining 140 grams of carbs a day with a diet that is 60% fat, they are
headed for disaster. There are good studies to support this.

The current recommendations from the Canadian Diabetes Association are
much, much worse than this sort of discipline problem. Also, lack of
conformance to a diet implies nothing about its validity.


It is only when carbs are brought down very low that fat can be eaten
safely. The combination of fat and carbs is dangerous to cardiovascular
health and to pancreas beta cells.

It is high ffa levels that are dangerous and you can get them without
eating any fat whatsoever. In fact, ffa levels are higher on high
carb diets since the metabolism is always in a regime of glucose to
triglyceride conversion and storage. VLDL and LDL levels are high,
reflecting this transport.

Getting people to stick to a low carb
diet for many years is challenging. If people absorb the idea that "fat is
good" without getting the part about how "fat is good when carbs are under
60 grams a day" they may end up with the heart disease that was the reason
that the low carb diets of the past (which were set around 60 grams a day or
higher) fell into disuse.

There is no evidence to support the idea that the low fat diets are
better at controlling the onset of Type II diabetes. The opposite is
true, in the wake of the low fat, high carb hysteria foisted on
society by government do-gooders the incidence of Type II diabetes has
been rising dramatically.


We need a lot of very detailed studies to look at what really works for
diabetics. Most importantly, we need more studies about the blood sugar
levels at which heart disease begins to see whether diabetics who maintain
blood sugar levels below some critical point avoid heart disease.

In short, there is not enough evidence to determine whether is it the
carb/fat combination or the actual blood sugar level that damages blood
vessels. There is some evidence that keeping blood sugars under 100 mg/dl
may avoid heart disease (UKPDS data on hba1c and heart attack risk).
However, not all diabetics can keep blood sugars under 100 mg/dl even while
low carbing very strenuously. I can't.

High insulin changes the physical makeup of blood vessels promoting
smooth muscle tissue growth aka hardening of the arteries. Free
radicals damage blood vessel walls and beta cells. The studies
pertaining to ffa effects on beta cells have not established any
mechanism for the damage and have used polyunsaturated vegetable oils
to induce high ffa levels. It is about time that polyunsaturated
vegetable oils were treated as likely toxins in the body since they
are chemically unstable.

"Jennifer" wrote in message
...

Jenny,

I'm going mad - it wasn't Annette, but Robert Miles who posted the link,
over on mhd - http://www.healthscout.com/news/322/521085/main.html

"Overall, the women with diabetes had a threefold higher risk of getting
heart failure than did the women without diabetes, Bibbins-Domingo said."

They quote good control here as an fbg between 80-150 mg/dl - they don't
quote a1c figures - and I find that scary because mine hovers around the
104 mark. With my bg meter dictating a diet that runs to 50-60g carbs a
day, I don't like the implications of a low carb diet being associated
with an increased risk of heart disease, as your correspondent implies.

But Nicky...

That's a GIANT range of fasting BGs. What you get by corraling people
with 80-150 in the same group is many people in great control... and many
in terrible.

They may call 150 fasting "good"... but it ain't.

If they had broken out the results of their study into smaller increments
(80-100) (101-120) (121- 140) (141 +) I think you'd see the folks who
keep their BGs "normal" have a different outcome.

In addition, FBG may not be the best indication of glycemic control and
future complications.

Here's a study that corolates post prandial readings and mortality from
heart disease... maybe this will make you feel better:

Post-Meal Glucose Levels Better Predictors of Premature Mortality
than Fasting Glucose or HbA1c

Thanks, Jenny, it does - not only from the risk of mortality POV, but also
because I can add it to my folder of things to hit my GP with next time he
refuses me test strips : )

Nicky.

--
HgBA1C 10.5/6.4/6 Weight 95/83/72
1g Metformin, 75mg Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004