Tips for project regarding type 1 diabetes

[52O342UOIF]

Hi!

I'm about to do a upper secondary diploma project. I want to study something regarding type 1 diabetes, from a scientific aspect as I study natural science. The tips I've gotten so far is things like:

• Change in BG with different diets
• How stimulus affect BG
• Comorbidity among type 1 diabetics
• Theories about autoimmunity

It would be fun to do something experimental as well, not just a literature study.
Do you guys have any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[52O342UOIF]

Don't anyone have some ideas? Maybe should've posted this in the research section...

 

[misswhiplash]

No ideas necessarily, but always happy to be a guinea pig

 

[mrspuddleduck]

Hi! The obvious one must be the shift in thinking amongst the diabetic community. from low GI foods to a low carb high fat diet. You could perhaps look at the scientific reason that reducing carbs rather than just sugar appears to have a more profound effect on blood sugar control????? Sue x

 

[52O342UOIF]

Hi! The obvious one must be the shift in thinking amongst the diabetic community. from low GI foods to a low carb high fat diet. You could perhaps look at the scientific reason that reducing carbs rather than just sugar appears to have a more profound effect on blood sugar control????? Sue x

Yes, I've thought about that. Especially considering many doctors still recommend (by official guidelines) a lot of carbohydrates to diabetics, and has for quite some time now. If you're not a child/teenager there's not (that I've found at least) studies that supports the claim that a diabetic should eat carbs to every meal. A good read about it is "The Laws of Small numbers - Diabetes solution."

As for the experiment I was thinking about since I'm getting a CGM compare two weeks of seperate diets. One where I eat as recommended, >30 g of carbs/meal I believe the guidelines is here at least. And another week where I cut out carbs as much as I can. It would be interesting to compare average glucose over the respective week. I'm not sure how big the difference would be, my last A1c was 37, and I eat a lot of junk food (honeymoon).

Another experiment would be to try and calculate how much alcohol replaces the livers glucose output. I'm unsure of how to do that though, if even possible in practice.

Thanks for the answer!

 

[mrspuddleduck]

Wow! My only worry would be it could end up an enormous project and youll run out of time!! Love the idea of looking at the (lack of) guidance for children/teens but I would perhaps limit it to either children or teens, again only because of the potential size of the issues (personally think the teens stuff would be better because its a time when young diabetics are beginning to really make independent choices) As for the alcohol one, fascinating but I wouldn't have a clue where to start!! Really good luck with it, and don't forget we want to know about it!! Sue x

 

[jrussell88]

What do you require from your project?

There's a danger of biting off more than you can chew given time and resources.

Better to answer a simple question well, than to fail with a complex question.

 

[52O342UOIF]

What do you require from your project?

There's a danger of biting off more than you can chew given time and resources.

Better to answer a simple question well, than to fail with a complex question.

The requirements are pretty much met with the some of the questions in the thread start, and then I have my experiment. We have quite a bit of time to work on this, as it is a upper diploma project.

 

[52O342UOIF]

Wow! My only worry would be it could end up an enormous project and youll run out of time!! Love the idea of looking at the (lack of) guidance for children/teens but I would perhaps limit it to either children or teens, again only because of the potential size of the issues (personally think the teens stuff would be better because its a time when young diabetics are beginning to really make independent choices) As for the alcohol one, fascinating but I wouldn't have a clue where to start!! Really good luck with it, and don't forget we want to know about it!! Sue x

Maybe a late response, but I could send a copy once I'm done. It's going to entirely in Swedish though, except the abstract.

 

[RuthW]

Yes, you couldn't possibly do a project on "the shift in thinking among a community" because it would require a huge survey of a representative number of T1 diabetics. So it's impossible for a high school project.

I for one think that the LCHF advocates are hugely overestimating their numbers simply because they are over represented on this site. (I hardly come here bcs I am so sick of the chorus now).

I follow the old-fashioned plenty of carbs, low-fat diet and have spot-on fasting bloods and an average 6.4 Hb these days. But that's because I exercise a lot. Exercising on LCHF is pretty hopeless. I hate high-fat because it boosts insulin resistance and for T1s involves highly unpredictable bolusing for protein etc.

Maybe, an achievable project could be on the interaction of exercise types and insulin requirements/resistance.

 

[Spiker]

What kind of experiment? If you do anything that needs people as subjects, that's going to be tricky. Quite of a few of your original topics would suffer from that problem.

You might be able to build part of a CGM system yourself, using something called xDrip. Would that qualify? Then maybe you could test it on yourself in different conditions - eating different foods, etc.

 

[52O342UOIF]

Yes, you couldn't possibly do a project on "the shift in thinking among a community" because it would require a huge survey of a representative number of T1 diabetics. So it's impossible for a high school project.

I for one think that the LCHF advocates are hugely overestimating their numbers simply because they are over represented on this site. (I hardly come here bcs I am so sick of the chorus now).

I follow the old-fashioned plenty of carbs, low-fat diet and have spot-on fasting bloods and an average 6.4 Hb these days. But that's because I exercise a lot. Exercising on LCHF is pretty hopeless. I hate high-fat because it boosts insulin resistance and for T1s involves highly unpredictable bolusing for protein etc.

Maybe, an achievable project could be on the interaction of exercise types and insulin requirements/resistance.

Well, I wasn't thinking about the community's thoughts, as you said it would be impossible, the diets wouldn't be discussed from a standpoint of the diabetic community. I would of course use studies, my experiment and so forth to support any claims.

Here's a survey about the effects of LCHF, self reporting but you can clearly still see restricting carbohydrates can drastically help the manage of diabetes. It's great that you can manage with your diet, unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone. Having to manage with needles, older insulin types and insulin resistance can make high carbohydrate consumption a bad choice. I'm not necessary an advocate LCHF, but seeing how good it works for many makes it interesting to study.

I've some about training and diabetes, interesting stuff! Many types of intense training result in fluctuating blood sugar and higher A1c, still there's a significant lower risk of complications, and still have the health benefits that training gives. Of course different types of training affect the body different, there's a difference in lifting weights and running... I don't think I'll point the project towards a training as I somehow want to connect my experiment and some of the literature.

Thanks for the tips, always nice with input!

 

[52O342UOIF]

What kind of experiment? If you do anything that needs people as subjects, that's going to be tricky. Quite of a few of your original topics would suffer from that problem.

You might be able to build part of a CGM system yourself, using something called xDrip. Would that qualify? Then maybe you could test it on yourself in different conditions - eating different foods, etc.

The experiment would be the comparison of two separate diets and their effect on blood sugar. I'm the test subject! The rest of the topics will be research using literature that's not necessarily connected to the experiment. I'd like to have a topic about different diets to discuss, unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot of studies regarding low carbohydrates diets and diabetes.

I'm going to look into getting the Freestyle Libre, as I was still looking at getting it. Being able to use it to the experiment is a plus. The dexcom is nice, but the Freestyle Libre has cheaper sensors and will probably be easier to get prescribed. The only practical difference between the two seems to be the ability to always have it connected, with the Dexcom. The Libre requires syncing but I don't think I'll need the alert features the Dexcom has.

 

[Spiker]

Sounds very interesting! Some things I would suggest for your experiments

Verify your basal rate is flat first using a fasting basal test for, ideally, 24 hours
As far as possible do a crossover study - hard with one individual - but if you are testing diet A vs diet B, do A then B then A then B. This is to try eliminate effects where one diet carries over to the other. Ideally you would have more subjects and the other half of the subjects would do B then A.
Weigh/measure everything and never assume something you eat or drink has no effect on BG and can be ignored. Record everything, and let the CGM tell you whether it did or didn't affect your BG.

By the way Dexcom sensors are cheaper, over time, if you re-use them. No problem if your study will only run 2 weeks though, just use Libre. Hopefully you can persuade someone to lend you a Libre scanner?

 

[donnellysdogs]

I know of one child in the UK that is T1 and her mum is still told that 240g of carbs should be ate each day.

This qty to my way of thinking makes errors too high, especially for children that may have PE one day and all behind the desk the next. School hols compared to term time are harder to manage too.

It would be interesting for a study of how some adults with T1 are lowering the carbs and yet children (parents) are still being told to have large amount of carbs.....

 

[52O342UOIF]

Sounds very interesting! Some things I would suggest for your experiments

Verify your basal rate is flat first using a fasting basal test for, ideally, 24 hours
As far as possible do a crossover study - hard with one individual - but if you are testing diet A vs diet B, do A then B then A then B. This is to try eliminate effects where one diet carries over to the other. Ideally you would have more subjects and the other half of the subjects would do B then A.
Weigh/measure everything and never assume something you eat or drink has no effect on BG and can be ignored. Record everything, and let the CGM tell you whether it did or didn't affect your BG.

By the way Dexcom sensors are cheaper, over time, if you re-use them. No problem if your study will only run 2 weeks though, just use Libre. Hopefully you can persuade someone to lend you a Libre scanner?

Wow, thanks! I'm still in my honeymoon (diagnosed 6 months ago) and don't take any basal insulin. The measuring is something I've been worrying about as it could jeopardize the result. I was thinking going one each diet a couple of days before beginning the one week measurement, would this be enough to avoid a distorted result? I don't if I'll have the time (or patience) to do a crossover. Having some test subjects would be awesome, I'd have to find some local diabetics for that, and one concern would be to handle all the data.

As for the logging food I don't know how much information besides the carbohydrates I should log, calories and protein could be interesting. I'm guessing there will be a lot of egg, bacon and salad consumed during the low carb week. Protein's effect will probably be a lot bigger once the carbohydrates disappear, triggers gluconeogenesis and results in elevated BG. Would be nice if I could place in the meals in the recorded BG-graph and see the results.

I think I'll be able to get a Libre prescribed, I've been offered one before. If not I hope I can get some sensors and borrow a scanner.

 

[52O342UOIF]

I know of one child in the UK that is T1 and her mum is still told that 240g of carbs should be ate each day.

This qty to my way of thinking makes errors too high, especially for children that may have PE one day and all behind the desk the next. School hols compared to term time are harder to manage too.

It would be interesting for a study of how some adults with T1 are lowering the carbs and yet children (parents) are still being told to have large amount of carbs.....

Yes, that does sound like a lot. There's not much of a margin for error dealing with so much carbs. Hopefully she has good control, sad to read about the result of elevated blood sugar during growth years.

 

[Spiker]

I think I'll be able to get a Libre prescribed, I've been offered one before

Really!!! That is great news, I haven't heard of one being prescribed before.

 

[Spiker]

Wow, thanks! I'm still in my honeymoon (diagnosed 6 months ago) and don't take any basal insulin.

To be honest you may not make an ideal or representative test subject if you still have significant, but perhaps fairly random, insulin production. Or you can say your study is on a honeymooning T1 and may not generalise well to other T1s.

As for the logging food I don't know how much information besides the carbohydrates I should log, calories and protein could be interesting.

Don't forget fat. Like I said above, don't assume anything won't have an effect and skip logging it. Fat will have quite a big effect on your BG graphs - you may be surprised.
.

 

[RuthW]

Well, I wasn't thinking about the community's thoughts, as you said it would be impossible, the diets wouldn't be discussed from a standpoint of the diabetic community. I would of course use studies, my experiment and so forth to support any claims.

Here's a survey about the effects of LCHF, self reporting but you can clearly still see restricting carbohydrates can drastically help the manage of diabetes. It's great that you can manage with your diet, unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone. Having to manage with needles, older insulin types and insulin resistance can make high carbohydrate consumption a bad choice. I'm not necessary an advocate LCHF, but seeing how good it works for many makes it interesting to study.

I've some about training and diabetes, interesting stuff! Many types of intense training result in fluctuating blood sugar and higher A1c, still there's a significant lower risk of complications, and still have the health benefits that training gives. Of course different types of training affect the body different, there's a difference in lifting weights and running... I don't think I'll point the project towards a training as I somehow want to connect my experiment and some of the literature.

Thanks for the tips, always nice with input!

Yes, that's great about your training. I've been Type 1 since 1967 and I have gone through every variety of insulin regime under the sun in that time so I do understand about "managing with needles". I now have pump. I find all I need to keep my blood sugars in the non-diabetic range is to have my basal rate right, and follow Scheiner's "Strike the Spike" instructions, which are all about timing.

When new or out-of-control Type 1s come on this board, they are invariably mobbed by people advocating LCHF, when there is no research showing any advantage for Type 1s. But high fat diets cause insulin resistance, and are much more difficult to manage in social life. They are also worse for muscle-building, and recovery after strenuous sports or exercise. Given that Type 1s are mostly young, I think LCHF is a really bad idea for Type 1s.

The survey you link to is about obesity in Type 2s, by the way. Pretty irrelevant to you.