• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Can I read?

Hi @SueJB, I think that using very low carb diets in children sets off the antennae of dietitians and others who worry about whether there will be sufficient vitamins. minerals, calories etc plus insulin for growth. That is my take-away message.
The issue in adults is almost by-passed in this blog.
Also the question of whether very low carb diet is appropriate for pregnant diabetics appears to be relatively untouched.
My challenge to detractors of any diet is to have them attempt to formulate a diet within the dietary limits of the diet under consideration that might work rather than just point out disparaging possible short-or long term problems.
Test the best before discrediting it.
The disparaging approach is what DAA appears to do with low carb high fat diets in T2D. I detect the arrogance in this: we do not think it will work well and in any case, we are not going to tell you how to make it work better.
At least that is my biased viewpoint. Apart from DAA's lack of declaration of conflict of interest with Big Food.
I applaud those that have done careful research in the area of low carb diets and praise those 'test' subjects who have tried the diets.
We know from history that people can survive on low carb intake but adding diabetes to the mix does complicate things!!
And then we need to consider the gut biome !! Where will it end up !!!
 
kitedoc said:
Hi @SueJB, I think that using very low carb diets in children sets off the antennae of dietitians and others who worry about whether there will be sufficient vitamins. minerals, calories etc plus insulin for growth. That is my take-away message.
The issue in adults is almost by-passed in this blog.
Also the question of whether very low carb diet is appropriate for pregnant diabetics appears to be relatively untouched.
My challenge to detractors of any diet is to have them attempt to formulate a diet within the dietary limits of the diet under consideration that might work rather than just point out disparaging possible short-or long term problems.
Test the best before discrediting it.
The disparaging approach is what DAA appears to do with low carb high fat diets in T2D. I detect the arrogance in this: we do not think it will work well and in any case, we are not going to tell you how to make it work better.
At least that is my biased viewpoint. Apart from DAA's lack of declaration of conflict of interest with Big Food.
I applaud those that have done careful research in the area of low carb diets and praise those 'test' subjects who have tried the diets.
We know from history that people can survive on low carb intake but adding diabetes to the mix does complicate things!!
And then we need to consider the gut biome !! Where will it end up !!!
Click to expand...
Hi @kitedoc I was thinking about a simple reaction to the article from Diabetes Daily. I don't know what DAA is.
 
An interesting point is that the human brain grows and developes at its greatest rate in the first year or two from birth. When an an infant is soley breat fed at this time he/she will be in ketosis. Human breast milk has a high level of saturated fat and we feed our children this at the most critical time for brain developement.

You may bring up the question of formula fed babies and this is where it gets interesting, being metabolically flexible (being able to switch easily from glucose to ketones) is an evolutionary triumph which means that humans can and have adapted very quickly to the shortages or absence of particular fuel types.

Now throw Diabetes of any type into the mix and problems ensue and need to be addressed.
 
SueJB said:
Hi @kitedoc I was thinking about a simple reaction to the article from Diabetes Daily. I don't know what DAA is.
Click to expand...
Apologies @SueJB. DAA is Dietitians Association of Australia who are anti- LCHF diet and have deregistered dietitians in the past and were instrumental in the temporary suspension of licence of a doctor in Australia, regarding these professionals' advocacy of LCHF diets. DAA has failed to disclose its sponsorship by several Food industry companies.
DAA controls the registration, training in under and post-grad areas, and influences curriculum and accreditation of university dietetics schools in Australia as well as being a long-term contributor to the nation's food guidelines.
Think of an Aussie version of the Eatwell plate, whose formulation, in Australia at least, occurred where reps of the Food industry supped with DAA.
google: Jennifer Elliott vs DAA.
 
Healthcare providers can no longer continue to count on patients' nutritional ignorance to explain away the failure of current dietary protocols.

Whether they choose to remain relevant by informing themselves or be discarded by patients is really up to them...
 
Guzzler said:
An interesting point is that the human brain grows and developes at its greatest rate in the first year or two from birth. When an an infant is soley breat fed at this time he/she will be in ketosis. Human breast milk has a high level of saturated fat and we feed our children this at the most critical time for brain developement.
Click to expand...
Got a reference for this? My random googling
https://www.infantnutritioncouncil.com/resources/breastmilk-information/
suggest 100ml breast milk has 67kcal, 1.3g protein, 4.2 g fat and 7g carbs, which suggests a protein/fat/carb calories ratio of 5/38/28 (approx), so carbs provide approxinmately 40% of the energy....
 
EllieM said:
Got a reference for this? My random googling
https://www.infantnutritioncouncil.com/resources/breastmilk-information/
suggest 100ml breast milk has 67kcal, 1.3g protein, 4.2 g fat and 7g carbs, which suggests a protein/fat/carb calories ratio of 5/38/28 (approx), so carbs provide approxinmately 40% of the energy....
Click to expand...
My understanding is that the carbs are in the form of oligosaccharides - they're actually to support the developing microbiome so digested by the bugs rather than the baby.
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
Having read the article, I am curious: what exactly caused you a negative reaction? I had no such reaction.
Click to expand...
@NoCrbs4Me is this a reply to me? I thought it was a very interesting article and I was nodding my head with the points being made. It was the 4 bullet points near the end that just made me think, there was no negative reaction, sorry if that's how I sounded
 
The babies-in-ketosis thing was a foundation stone of Prof Noakes’ defence in his trial in South Africa.

You can find links to his testimony on YouTube and on @Indy51 ’s thread on this forum where she links to about 50 video clips of the trial itself.

In the meantime, here is a quick article I just googled.
https://realmealrevolution.com/real-thinking/ketosis-key-to-human-babies-big-brains/
Interestingly it is by a qualified dietician who didn’t discover that babies are in ketosis throughout all training and several years of practice.
 
Generally, this 2015 arguments against low carbs critics remains valid...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287761
The benefits of carbohydrate restriction in diabetes are immediate and well documented. Concerns about the efficacy and safety are long term and conjectural rather than data driven. Dietary carbohydrate restriction reliably reduces high blood glucose, does not require weight loss (although is still best for weight loss), and leads to the reduction or elimination of medication. It has never shown side effects comparable with those seen in many drugs.
Click to expand...
 
kitedoc said:
Hi @SueJB, I think that using very low carb diets in children sets off the antennae of dietitians and others who worry about whether there will be sufficient vitamins. minerals, calories etc plus insulin for growth. That is my take-away message.
The issue in adults is almost by-passed in this blog.
Also the question of whether very low carb diet is appropriate for pregnant diabetics appears to be relatively untouched.
My challenge to detractors of any diet is to have them attempt to formulate a diet within the dietary limits of the diet under consideration that might work rather than just point out disparaging possible short-or long term problems.
Test the best before discrediting it.
The disparaging approach is what DAA appears to do with low carb high fat diets in T2D. I detect the arrogance in this: we do not think it will work well and in any case, we are not going to tell you how to make it work better.
At least that is my biased viewpoint. Apart from DAA's lack of declaration of conflict of interest with Big Food.
I applaud those that have done careful research in the area of low carb diets and praise those 'test' subjects who have tried the diets.
We know from history that people can survive on low carb intake but adding diabetes to the mix does complicate things!!
And then we need to consider the gut biome !! Where will it end up !!!
Click to expand...
The only issue I have seen for children on low carb diets has been when used in the context of epilepsy, where protein was too low, otherwise it is about adherence and if LDL potentially rising is a problem from whoever's perspective. My eldest daughter is 16 and she has been doing low carb for around 2 years now - playing football at an elite level. Earlier in the year she came 7th in cross country out of 50 at a weight of around 72 kg (lean mass mainly), yet she is one of the fastest around and ridiculously strong (lifts the most in her club).
 
SueJB said:
@NoCrbs4Me is this a reply to me? I thought it was a very interesting article and I was nodding my head with the points being made. It was the 4 bullet points near the end that just made me think, there was no negative reaction, sorry if that's how I sounded
Click to expand...
Ok, the four bullet points were in line with the rest of the article, which was quite positive regarding low carb diets. I don't see anything to complain about in the article.
 
SueJB said:
I'm not sure about my reaction to this. First I thought great until I read to the bottom.
Thoughts anyone
https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/...yiOXJbPg3BNDDYauxaU4VsMuUlk-tbze-moEpOMAWV_xM
Click to expand...
I think this is a balanced article stating the great news that there is more and more interest and studies of the topic as well as summarising objections and observing that none of the se objections has evidence to back it up.
Dr Bernstein and the GRIT people (type 1 kids on a ketogenic diet) contend that what actually stops kids growing is unstable and high glucose levels which are far more likely if the standard of care advice is followed.
Limited ingested glucose does not mean that insulin levels are insufficient because background insulin will always be present to deal with gluconeogenesis to fuel the brain, and protein. It is just the mealtime spikes in insulin that are avoided.
Inevitably and rightly the establishment will question any radical approach and wish to see longer term studies but the reason that so many parents are trying the low carb approach is that it reduces scary night time hypos and blood sugar swings. I don't think this approach bans the occasional treat with appropriate dosing so they are scraping the barrel with that objection.
 
And ironically, the real “radical approach” was that which in the late 1970’s decided we were suddenly birds and should therefore base our entire diet around grains. Humankind was doing fine before this intervention. Sure, heart disease was on the rise, but what is hardly ever spoken of is that this may just have been at least partly due to the explosion of the use of Frankenfats such as Crisco that were finding their way into every pantry throughout the 1950’s. Prior to that, heart disease was almost unheard of. It’s actually kind of a miracle that we decided industrial oils that were introduced into our diets in immediate history were not the cause of increasing heart and vascular disease and that, somehow, the natural animal fats we’d been eating for three million years were the real culprits. Even more so that these new fats were actually going to save us.

Science eh? Frankly, as a species, we should be embarrassed. Are we not meant to be smart? :D
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
Ok, the four bullet points were in line with the rest of the article, which was quite positive regarding low carb diets. I don't see anything to complain about in the article.
Click to expand...
I'm not complaining @NoCrbs4Me "First I thought great until I read to the bottom." where some valid questions were raised which made me think what more was needed. I believe in low carb
 
Mbaker said:
The only issue I have seen for children on low carb diets has been when used in the context of epilepsy, where protein was too low, otherwise it is about adherence and if LDL potentially rising is a problem from whoever's perspective. My eldest daughter is 16 and she has been doing low carb for around 2 years now - playing football at an elite level. Earlier in the year she came 7th in cross country out of 50 at a weight of around 72 kg (lean mass mainly), yet she is one of the fastest around and ridiculously strong (lifts the most in her club).
Click to expand...
Thankyou @Mbaker. That your daughter is doing so well is a fine example.
My concern was mirroring one of the researchers in that with diabetic children whether insulin levels might not be high enough on very low carb diets to enable proper growth.
My other comment was more along the lines that unless one is a diabetic child undergoing a trial of low or very low carb diet with presumably all the input of experts to ensure all nutritional needs are accounted for, that a health professional who is against such diets might not properly assist a diabetic child whose parents agreed with them undergoing a low carb diet. The health professional might do this either because they are notionally or from educational bias against such a diet and thus biased professionally and morally perhaps , or because they are forbidden from prescribing such a diet under threat of de-registration.
 
Back
Top