0 carb diet healthy or unhealthy?

Hi John,

I am a type 1 diabetic on insulin and want to get to the point were I don't need to take any insulin, maybe just my background at night if necessary.

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Won't happen I'm afraid. Even on a zero carb diet your body will produce it's own supply of glucose and will turn up to 60% of dietary protein to glucose too.

There was a celebrity and for the life of my I can't remember who it was but she changed from a type 1 on insulin to a type 2 just controling her diabetes with diet and exercise.

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Halle Berry and she was either misquoted or doesn't know what she's on about. Beta cell failure in type 1 is irreversible and you can't trade T1 for T2.

So the first question is does the 0 carb diet's pro's for diabetes outweight the cons for it being unhealthy on the brain?

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I don't know anyone who's tried it. Stefansson and Andersen carried out a famous experiment in New York in the 1920's whare they ate only meat for 1 year and were healthier as a result. Theoretically, diabetics may respond just the same, particularly if they switch from the standard high-carb diet. The body will make sufficient glucose for brain function even without dietary carbohydrate, provided adequate protein is eaten.

How possible is it to get to the point were you are able to control it with diet and exercise?

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A luxury afforded only to some type 2's I'm afraid.

What is the chance of me going really skinny with a 0 carb diet

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You'd certainly lose any excess weight while maintaining your muscle mass.

All the best,

fergus

There are threads where we have been discussing this John, that you might find useful reading.

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How can the glucose processed by the liver be any different to any other glucose? That is what the liver does. Whatever we eat has to be processed by the liver in some way or another. I can't see why that should be bad for the brain?!! Honestly, the rubbish that is touted - kind of sits on the back of 'fat raises cholesterol' and all that guff.

There are people around who have purported to have 'cured' their T1 and T2 with diet, and they might well have got it under control by diet. Whilst T2 may be reversible to a certain extent, T1 usually isn't as Fergus has mentioned, well certainly not to the point that one could eat anything one wanted to again. Definitely diet can reduce the need for insulin though, and eating a really nutritious and healthy diet will certainly help the body to heal and that in itself may help too.

Victoria Boutenko's son manages his T1 just through a raw food diet (probably fine if you live in California where it is hot most of the time!)(it seems that Victoria got him on to the diet whilst he was still in the 'Honeymoon' period and was able to prevent him from having to go on to insulin), the 'Raw for 30 days' ethic with Gabriel Cousins does the same thing, others, including quite a few T1s who post on here seem to manage with a low or no carb regime, so it does seem possible but it means maintaining the diet on a permanent basis. The thing all these diets that seem to work have in common is their generally low carb (and any carb that is eaten is not usually grain-based).

Lowering the carbs and upping the fats will help to keep you trim. Once the body is burning fuel properly then it will naturally balance to normal weight, whether it needs to be up or down. Both weight gain and weight loss are driven by blood sugar and insulin levels. The less of both there is floating around in the body, the better we are for it.

Just another rider on this subject - I was perusing through the 'Raw for 30 days' blog....

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/ ... _cured.php

.......and picked up in one of the comments by someone called Chris, a reference to some interesting research info that suggests that T1 Diabetes may actually be, not an auto-immune condition, but a neurological disorder - and that would make sense. What is it that Diabetics often suffer with? Neuropathy. If it can happen elsewhere in the body then why could it not start in the Pancreas?

Interestingly, my neuropathy and ataxia has gone since I dumped gluten and dairy and adopted the lower-carb all natural diet........

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/12/ ... euron.html

John, things like sausages aren't bad in themselves - it just depends on what is in them. The Tescos value sausages probably have very little meat and a lot of rusk so are probably very high in carbs - and not very good ones either. If you were to go for really good sausages like M & S Premium sausages which are 93% pork and pea starch rather than rusk, you probably would have no problem with them at all.

The same goes for burgers. Go for 100% quarter pounders rather than the ones with other stuff added to them. Of course you can always buy the meat and make them yourself which is a far better bet because then you know exactly what is in them.

You have already discovered that eating low carb stuff like salads helps to keep your bg levels low so you are already on the right track with that.

As you are still in Honeymoon, then it might be possible to continue that situation and avoid having to take too much insulin, as long as you are prepared to adopt the low-carb regime on a permanent basis. There is no cure, but low-carbing can help a lot with management. You do have to be disciplined with it though.

Don't overdo the protein - too much protein is as bad as too little and you do need to up the fats - but again, within reason. You can use butter, lard, ghee, coconut oil and olive oil in cooking, and cold-pressed vegetable oils on cold food - salads and in dressings, etc.

Animal fats are ok as long as they are not eaten in conjunction with carbs. Chips are pretty lethal. apart from the fact they are full of carbs, they are fried in vegetable oil which is not good when heated. So, by all means have salad or non-starchy veg with your meat or fish or poultry and avoid the carbs and you may well be able to keep your Honeymoon going.

Victoria Boutenko's son has managed to do that for several years, so it is not impossible.

a reference to some interesting research info that suggests that T1 Diabetes may actually be, not an auto-immune condition, but a neurological disorder

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I'm not sure that this is a true reflection of the research by Dosch and Salter, though it did cause a stir a couple of years back when they claimed to have reversed Type 1 in mice using capsaicin (pepper)
If you google them in scholar you can read some of their papers, a 2008 summary in Neurology today and a link to their patent application also comes up (but I must admit I got sidetracked by the patent for' pancreas regeneration treatment for diabetics using extracorporeal acoustic shock waves' :roll: which came up when I clicked on the link :!: its nothing to do with the above doctors whose work which may perhaps..... eventually get somewhere)

From a purely nutritional point of view, I think it is vitally important to highlight that not all carbs are equal. Whilst many people and cultues live perfectly healthy lives on little or no starchy carbs i.e. bread, pasta, potatoes etc, it is important to eat a wide variety of vegetables every day, together with nuts, seeds and some pulses if you can tolerate them to ensure that your body gets a good range of macro and mircronutrients essential for good health. And these foods all contain small amounts of carbs so I would say that a truly 0 carb diet should not be aimed for, just reduction of starchy carbs.