Can keto cause diabetes???

[therower]

What are peoples thoughts??

https://www.pcrm.org/news/exam-room-podcast/can-keto-diet-cause-diabetes

On account no one seems 100% certain on what causes diabetes I see no problem with adding it to the list.

 

[Oldvatr]

We must be overdue another Keto Crotch? I’ll start the ball rolling with Keto Hair. People eating ketogenic diets have bad hairstyles.

Any takers?

One thing is becoming clear to me. Whatever diet you choose to follow, if you do it long enough you will die.

 

[Jaylee]

On account no one seems 100% certain on what causes diabetes I see no problem with adding it to the list.

I see no problem with that. we already have "Too much sugar as a kid," & "Exs..."

 

[Winnie53]

According to podcast description, this is the study abstract they're basing their conclusions on... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310828

Just for fun... What problems do you see with this study's design?

DESIGN:
A prospective cohort study was conducted in participants from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who were free of T2D, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline (n = 40,475) for up to 20 y. Cumulative averages of 3 low-carbohydrate diet scores (high total protein and fat, high animal protein and fat, and high vegetable protein and fat) were calculated every 4 y from food-frequency questionnaires and were associated with incident T2D by using Cox models.​

 

[bulkbiker]

According to podcast description, this is the study abstract they're basing their conclusions on... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310828

Just for fun... What problems do you see with this study's design?

DESIGN:
A prospective cohort study was conducted in participants from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who were free of T2D, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline (n = 40,475) for up to 20 y. Cumulative averages of 3 low-carbohydrate diet scores (high total protein and fat, high animal protein and fat, and high vegetable protein and fat) were calculated every 4 y from food-frequency questionnaires and were associated with incident T2D by using Cox models.​

Ho ho ho.. that was the famous "low carb" diet where the lowest carb intake was 37% from carbs.. no-one could ever describe that as "low carb" apart from the Harvard vegan cohort of Willetts and Hu of course... and guess whose names are amongst the authors... well well well...

 

[Winnie53]

Hana Kahleova, M.D., Ph.D. is the the Director for Clinical Rasearch, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which is an animal rights group in the US. Here's her online bio...

Hana Kahleova, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee and directs research studies analyzing the effect food choices have on insulin resistance and the regulation of a healthy body weight. Her current research includes analyzing the thermic effect of food in response to a 16-week dietary intervention.

Dr. Kahleova has published more than a dozen nutrition studies. She is the author of Vegetarian Diet in the Treatment of Diabetes (Maxdorf, 2013). She also wrote the chapter about using a plant-based diet to treat diabetes in Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diets in Health and Disease Prevention (Academic Press, 2017).

Her favorite research topics include testing the effect a plant-based diet has on metabolism, insulin function, fitness, and mental health, as well as studying the impact meal timing and meal frequency have on metabolism and body weight.

Dr. Kahleova earned her doctorate in nutrition and diabetes and her medical degree from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. As a postdoctoral research fellow at Loma Linda University in California, Dr. Kahleova analyzed data from 50,000 Adventist Health Study-2 participants. She analyzed data on meal frequency and timing in relationship to changes in body weight. She finds two to three meals a day, without snacks, are optimal for body weight control. This led to her recommendation to eat breakfast regularly and to make it the largest meal of the day.

Dr. Kahleova’s favorite prescription for optimal health and wellness is to eat a whole-food, plant-based diet and to be physically active.

Read more about Dr. Kahleova’s research in PubMed and view recent news articles online.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
​

What I find interesting is that she's using all the strategies we do - (eating a real, whole-food diet and limiting meals to two to three times a day, without snacks) - she just eliminates animal protein and fat.

 

[Winnie53]

Ho ho ho.. that was the famous "low carb" diet where the lowest carb intake was 37% from carbs.. no-one could ever describe that as "low carb" apart from the Harvard vegan cohort of Willetts and Hu of course... and guess whose names are amongst the authors... well well well...

Yes bulkbiker, I picked up on that too. I don't know how she can even begin to support her assertion that the keto diet causes type 2 diabetes with that epidemiological study...

"Cumulative averages of 3 low-carbohydrate diet scores (high total protein and fat, high animal protein and fat, and high vegetable protein and fat) were calculated every 4 y from food-frequency questionnaires and were associated with incident T2D by using Cox models."

Additionally, the keto diet is a high fat diet, not a high protein diet. And as you pointed out, we don't know what the carbohydrate intake was in this study.

 

[Jaylee]

Ho ho ho.. that was the famous "low carb" diet where the lowest carb intake was 37% from carbs.. no-one could ever describe that as "low carb" apart from the Harvard vegan cohort of Willetts and Hu of course... and guess whose names are amongst the authors... well well well...

That's strange, because I'm sure around 9 minutes into the podcast Dr Kahleova said that a "keto" gave you a 37% chance of Diabetes, cancer & heart issues?
But i was plugging my headphones in at the time because I was concerned about the ozone eroding Ch4 coming out the speakers..

 

[Member496333]

You'd be better off asking my dog what I had for dinner last night than expecting anyone to accurately report their diet over the past four years. There should be laws against this sort of thing

 

[bulkbiker]

we don't know what the carbohydrate intake was in this study.

Well we do and we know it was a long way from Keto.. the study is here (see table 1 for the nutrition breakdown).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057550/

 

[Winnie53]

bulkbiker, thanks for posting a link to the study.

Is this what you're referring to from Table 1?

Carbohydrate (% of energy)

Low-carbohydrate, high total protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–8)] 57.7 ± 6.0
[Q5 (22–30)] 37.3 ± 4.9

Low-carbohydrate, high animal protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–7)] 57.4 ± 6.2
[Q5 (23–30)] 37.4 ± 5.2

Low-carbohydrate, high vegetable protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–10)] 51.2 ± 8.9
[Q5 (20–30)] 43.0 ± 6.4
​

So does that mean at minimum, those eating animal protein and fat were consuming 37.3% to 37.4% of their energy from carbohydrate intake? [Edited to correct percentages in question.]

 

[Winnie53]

Many thanks to the OP for posting this podcast. I'm getting ready to restart my diabetes group, and while up until now I've been supportive of those who choose to eat a vegan/vegetarian diet (and still am), I'm going to stop doing so through our diabetes group.

[I'm having a "What have I been thinking?!" moment.]

I'm in the process of changing our group's purpose to preparing and eating low carb/keto meals together.

In our community, we have numerous groups supportive of the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle, but none for those of us who choose to include animal protein and fat in our diet.

I'm tired of the nonsense around the promotion of the whole food plant-based diet through use of epidemiological studies. And I'm tired of the bickering. It's a huge distraction that derails me from the important work I'm doing because I know, based on the research to date, and my lab test results, and our group members lab test results, also those of forum members here, that the low carb/keto diet works, and works very well for many, though not all, who have diabetes. (No one diet works for everyone).

Too many of my friends and acquaintances who have chosen to follow the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle have autoimmune and other health issues, including nutritional deficiencies. It's a difficult diet to do correctly, requires supplementation, and I just don't have the passion, knowledge, and experience needed to support them.

Instead, I'm going to honor their choice by encouraging them to seek out local groups and online resources that will best meet their needs. And I'm going to go forward with the diet that I know works best for diabetes, a low carb/keto diet with an emphasis of eating real, whole foods.

Looking back over the last five years, I wish now I'd done this from the beginning.

 

[Oldvatr]

The openin

Yes bulkbiker, I picked up on that too. I don't know how she can even begin to support her assertion that the keto diet causes type 2 diabetes with that epidemiological study...

"Cumulative averages of 3 low-carbohydrate diet scores (high total protein and fat, high animal protein and fat, and high vegetable protein and fat) were calculated every 4 y from food-frequency questionnaires and were associated with incident T2D by using Cox models."

Additionally, the keto diet is a high fat diet, not a high protein diet. And as you pointed out, we don't know what the carbohydrate intake was in this study.

The opening paragraph puts things into perspective in that it is a prospective cohort study. This means it does not provide any answers and at best will possibly show areas where further investigation is required before any conclusions can be drawn. It is epidemiological on a closed or specially selected community so is not representative of the general populace.

 

[Oldvatr]

Yes bulkbiker, I picked up on that too. I don't know how she can even begin to support her assertion that the keto diet causes type 2 diabetes with that epidemiological study...

"Cumulative averages of 3 low-carbohydrate diet scores (high total protein and fat, high animal protein and fat, and high vegetable protein and fat) were calculated every 4 y from food-frequency questionnaires and were associated with incident T2D by using Cox models."

Additionally, the keto diet is a high fat diet, not a high protein diet. And as you pointed out, we don't know what the carbohydrate intake was in this study.

This sounds like it was the Harvard Nurses study. The beauty of that, if it is so, then the raw data is freely available to independent analysis, and from what I remember the paper published by Harvard T Chan school of medicine was not confirmed by others using the same database. I remember it making the news a year or so ago.

I see that Harvard T Chan are holding a sypmposium soon "What is the future of red meat, plant-based meat and lab-grown meat? The symposium Red Meat, Meat Alternatives, and Bey…

Edit to add: No it was not the Nurses Study but comes from the same departments at Harvard.

 

[bulkbiker]

bulkbiker, thanks for posting a link to the study.

Is this what you're referring to from Table 1?

Carbohydrate (% of energy)

Low-carbohydrate, high total protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–8)] 57.7 ± 6.0
[Q5 (22–30)] 37.3 ± 4.9

Low-carbohydrate, high animal protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–7)] 57.4 ± 6.2
[Q5 (23–30)] 37.4 ± 5.2

Low-carbohydrate, high vegetable protein and fat score
[Q1 (0–10)] 51.2 ± 8.9
[Q5 (20–30)] 43.0 ± 6.4
​

So does that mean at minimum, those eating animal protein and fat were consuming 37.3% to 37.4% of their energy from carbohydrate intake? [Edited to correct percentages in question.]

Yep.. about as keto as SAD...

 

[Mbaker]

Vegan propaganda site.. PCRM is Dr Neil Barnard's mouthpiece..

He's the chap who claims to reverse Type 2 but stalls out at about 7.5 mmol and continues to rise therafter; yet he is hugely influential.

 

[bulkbiker]

He's the chap who claims to reverse Type 2 but stalls out at about 7.5 mmol and continues to rise therafter; yet he is hugely influential.

Like this you mean...

 

[Winnie53]

Bulkbiker, I don't have all my books organized and easily accessible at the moment, but a quick online search said that the energy from carbohydrate intake is 5 to 10 percent on keto, so compared to their 37 percent, that's a BIG difference. I listened to the podcast. She clearly has not looked at or followed Volek's, Phinney's, and Hallberg's work, or Westman's, and doesn't understand how the keto diet works, which makes sense, because that would be too confusing. Must maintain one's confimation bias at all times.

I do not understand confirmation bias. When I started the keto diet, I spent six months looking at all the diets, how they worked, and questioned everything. And I never looked back because all my health markers improved so dramatically.

I like what Jenny Ruhl says... Choose a diet, follow it exactly as designed for three months, then decide whether to stay with it or try another diet.

What I love so much about the low carb diet and it's many variations is that the people who promote it don't just refer briefly to a parade of studies that show this or that, they dig into the details of the study's results so you understand why and how the diet works, and how to know when it's not working.

Oldvatr, thanks as always for your explanations. I always strive to understand your posts. I linked to the study's abstract, bulkbiker linked to the study itself. If interested, here's the link to the study again... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057550/

Just a quick aside. I miss BLT sandwiches - (bacon, lettuce, and tomato) - and have been experimenting. Today's effort was really yummy... Combine in bowl 1/2 avocado cubed, 4-6 cherry tomatoes cut into fourths or sixths, 2 slices of thick bacon cooked and sliced into 1/2" sections, 1/3 cup raw walnuts, 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoon mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon of bacon drippings from pan (for added flavor). Mix and enjoy with a side of raw veggies. So good.

 

[Winnie53]

bulkbiker, those are not impressive results. The Virta Health/Sarah Hallberg study is getting much better results at 2 years.

 

[bulkbiker]

bulkbiker, those are not impressive results. The Virta Health/Sarah Hallberg study is getting much better results at 2 years.

Yep I know.. yet some claim that a vegan diet can reverse T2.. when one of the leading vegan docs gets results like that....