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How highly would you recommend eating low carb?

Spiker said:
Signy gave me my mantra:

Ommmmmmmm.... .bugggrit!!! Ommmmmmmm.... .bugggrit!!! Ommmmmmmm.... .bugggrit!!!
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As the saying goes..................''don't knock it until you've tried it.''

Meditation is good for the mind I'm sure, you don't see many angry Buddhist Priests put it that way:)
 
LucySW said:
@Spiker,

I hadn't seen that observation about 95% of T1s not achieving a good enough HbA1c, and it rather horrifies me, particularly as I'm starting to realise how unpredictable bolus-ing is going to be when I have to do it. I'm having difficulty understanding it. And please, what IS the reason?

Lucy
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First the NICE target is
Targets for clinical monitoring
HbA1c < 7.5 %
If increased arterial risk: HbA1c = 6.5 %

In England, the percentage of adults under 55 with T1 who achieve the 7.5% target is 34.8%
6.4% achieve less than 6.5%
The figures for the over 55s at 35.7% and 9.2% are slightly better.

I think there are a lot of reasons but thinking of Scardocs post I looked to see if I could find anything on' compliance'

The only figures I found were from a 2006 international research project from 13 countries. This including 250 T1s from the UK but the results are aggregated from all the countries involved
There were 19.4% of them who self reported compliance with their HCPs recommendations for diet, exercise, medication taking, glucose testing,
Doctors estimates were somewhat lower 7.3% for T1
There were lots of people reporting various feelings of distress and depression, with almost half defined by a WHO as having 'poor' wellbeing. There was linkage between what they termed poor adherence and psychological problems. but very few got any help with these problems.
They also noted that feelings at diagnosis seemed important, a ' poor' reaction tended to produce poorer quality of life, less adherence etc (that seems to me to be an time when people need a lot of help and support and often don't appear to get it)
http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/18/3/136.full


Other things I've read in the past are more general, ie educational level plays a part particularly arithmetical skills; you actually need a relatively high level of numeracy to calculate carbs and adjust insulin doses
The other thing is that there is a lot of evidence that people from 'higher' socioeconomic levels seem to do better on almost all measures (that's not just in the UK but I've read US and German research demonstrating that.

One last thing in the UK there are marked differences between PCTs/areas as to how many patients receive all care processes from their GPs) (edited spelling)
http://www.hqip.org.uk/assets/NCAPO...cess-and-Treatment-Targets-published-2012.pdf
(agh.............. that's not the latest report, sorry I don't think there are that big changes though)
 
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phoenix said:
There were 19.4% of them who self reported compliance with their HCPs recommendations for diet, exercise, medication taking, glucose testing,
Doctors estimates were somewhat lower 7.3% for T1
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Very interesting. So whether you believe the doctors or the diabetics, there is huge disparity between what doctors believe patients are doing and what patients believe they are doing. By a factor of nearly 3.
 
Spiker said:
@phoenix I would well believe that depression, burnout and related psychological issues are a major cause of the huge "target gap'.
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Agreed .
And unfortunately these are often unrecognised and go undiagnosed. Therefore not integrated into studies and statistics.

I personally know of two Type 1's who struggled with burnout .Although both had been diagnosed with depression the connection with their inability to cope with their diabetes and their depressive state wasn't recognised and addressed. Both had been through the system of different insulins, dieticians etc and were seen as "failed" . Nowadays using a pump would probably been the solution.

Depression is now supposed to be part of the standard questions asked at diabetic reviews, but it isn't always asked or if it is, not acted on . It's mostly a paper exercise and people slip through the net.

Signy
 
There is an interesting quote about the relationship between food and health. Note that although the author says "bread" in the quote, he's really talking about food in general.

See if you can guess who said it:

"I know, too, that the body is affected differently by bread according to the manner in which it is prepared...

The influence of each process is considerable and each has a totally different effect from another.

How can anyone who has not considered such matters and come to understand them possibly know anything of the diseases that afflict mankind?

Each one of the substances of a man's diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends."

Know who said it?
 
Hippocrates. The Father of Modern Medicine.

He knew that the number one factor in determining someone's health (or lack thereof) was their diet and he guided his patients to overcome illness naturally with their diet--FOOD was their medicine. 460-370 BC.
 
donnellysdogs said:
Hippocrates. The Father of Modern Medicine.

He knew that the number one factor in determining someone's health (or lack thereof) was their diet and he guided his patients to overcome illness naturally with their diet--FOOD was their medicine. 460-370 BC.
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Crikey DD, you didn't give us much chance to guess who it was :D
 
I would like to introduce a new point of view ie. I have Type 1, have an HbA1C bang on target, have never been overweight, but have been under weight a couple of times, and excercise a lot. I am on a pump. My problem is that I have an extreme sensitivity to insulin, take very small doses and have very little leeway when making dose adjustments. It's not unusual for my BG readings to fluctuate between 3 and 13 or more in a typical day, despite taking a lot of trouble to weigh out my food and calculate the CHO. I often feel a bit groggy. My consultant admits that excercise does not improve control in Type 1, but still recommends it as a safeguard against cardiovascular disease. He calls me a borderline brittle diabetic, due to the small daily insulin requirement. I have been wondering whether going lower carb might help, ( I eat about 120-150g a day ), but am struck by the fact that low carbers are pleased with the amount of weight they have lost. I would not wish to lose more than 1Kg, if that. I hate fatty food, it gives me indigestion and makes me feel sick, if I can manage to eat any at all.
If anyone has any suggestions at all, I would be vey grateful.
 
crystal said:
I would like to introduce a new point of view ie. I have Type 1, have an HbA1C bang on target, have never been overweight, but have been under weight a couple of times, and excercise a lot. I am on a pump. My problem is that I have an extreme sensitivity to insulin, take very small doses and have very little leeway when making dose adjustments. It's not unusual for my BG readings to fluctuate between 3 and 13 or more in a typical day, despite taking a lot of trouble to weigh out my food and calculate the CHO. I often feel a bit groggy. My consultant admits that excercise does not improve control in Type 1, but still recommends it as a safeguard against cardiovascular disease. He calls me a borderline brittle diabetic, due to the small daily insulin requirement. I have been wondering whether going lower carb might help, ( I eat about 120-150g a day ), but am struck by the fact that low carbers are pleased with the amount of weight they have lost. I would not wish to lose more than 1Kg, if that. I hate fatty food, it gives me indigestion and makes me feel sick, if I can manage to eat any at all.
If anyone has any suggestions at all, I would be vey grateful.
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Dairy fat and cooking oils?
 
You can make up the carb loss in fat by making things like blueberry muffins with ground almonds.. Less than 10 carbs per muffin, berries and cream? Tomorrow I'm making apple muffins but there is only 1 cup of apples for 9 muffins.. This is a new recipe as my Practice Manager has let me help myself to apples off his tree. This again is lower carbs and good amounts of healthy fat from nuts, chia seeds, flaxseed etc..
It sounds like you think of fat as being fat so to speak... Trouble is, none of the ingredients are cheap if people are budgetting.
I know of a young lady on this forum that gets better levels from blueberries and greek yogurt than porridge or toast. T1 just like me and her levels reflect what mine did when somebody suggested I had porridge for breakfast. I'm sure she won't mind me saying but after her blueberries this morning her levels only went up 0.7ml. Brilliant compared to when she eats far more carbs and personally I only have 3 teaspoons of yogurt or double cream with mine.
I downloaded liads of ketogenic diet and paleo books from kindle and make some snack things each week. My weight has now remained the same just from adding a few snacks in. If I haven't had 60g of carbs And I been working I do add in a complan mix with almond milk to ensure that I get a balance of carbs.
 
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