Grateful
Well-Known Member
When I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in February, and prior to seeing my doctor, I read several books about "ending diabetes" with extreme diets of one kind or another. Frankly, I was in a very dark place and just wanted to find something, anything, with a positive message.
One was a book by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, "The Eat To Live Plan: The End Of Diabetes." It was a best-seller in America a few years ago. The gist of his system is to consume gigantic quantities of vegetables. I remember reading an Amazon review by someone who had adopted this diet and said they had to buy a second refrigerator to store all of the veg!
Anyway, here is what he said about the Low-Carb, High-Fat lifestyle that many of us are on. (I am on something similar, but more like "low carb, moderate fat").
Carbohydrate-restrictive diets that are rich in animal products can offer some short-term improvement in glucose control and can potentially aid weight-loss in some people, but because those diets are too rich in animal products (which do not contain phytochemicals or antioxidants) they incur significant risks such as cancer, heart disease, and kidney disease. [snip] Even though a protein-dense diet might offer some marginal weight loss benefits compared to a diet with lots of processed carbohydrates, it still does not allow the substantive weight reduction that diabetics really need to rid themselves of the disease.
Emerging evidence also suggests that carbohydrate-restrictive, also called ketogenic, diets "create metabolic derangement conducive to cardiac conduction abnormalities and/or myocardial dysfunction." In other words, it may cause other potentially life-threatening heart problems. [snip] ... deaths have occurred from cardiac arrhythmias induced from the electrolyte derangement.
This goes on for an entire chapter and anyway I don't want to abuse the "fair usage" copyright rule.
I think this is total guff, but millions of copies of this book (or other books by the same author pushing the same giga-vegetable plan) were sold.
It is yet another example of how hard it is for the average Type 2 diabetic to make head or tail of the conflicting advice.
One was a book by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, "The Eat To Live Plan: The End Of Diabetes." It was a best-seller in America a few years ago. The gist of his system is to consume gigantic quantities of vegetables. I remember reading an Amazon review by someone who had adopted this diet and said they had to buy a second refrigerator to store all of the veg!
Anyway, here is what he said about the Low-Carb, High-Fat lifestyle that many of us are on. (I am on something similar, but more like "low carb, moderate fat").
Carbohydrate-restrictive diets that are rich in animal products can offer some short-term improvement in glucose control and can potentially aid weight-loss in some people, but because those diets are too rich in animal products (which do not contain phytochemicals or antioxidants) they incur significant risks such as cancer, heart disease, and kidney disease. [snip] Even though a protein-dense diet might offer some marginal weight loss benefits compared to a diet with lots of processed carbohydrates, it still does not allow the substantive weight reduction that diabetics really need to rid themselves of the disease.
Emerging evidence also suggests that carbohydrate-restrictive, also called ketogenic, diets "create metabolic derangement conducive to cardiac conduction abnormalities and/or myocardial dysfunction." In other words, it may cause other potentially life-threatening heart problems. [snip] ... deaths have occurred from cardiac arrhythmias induced from the electrolyte derangement.
This goes on for an entire chapter and anyway I don't want to abuse the "fair usage" copyright rule.
I think this is total guff, but millions of copies of this book (or other books by the same author pushing the same giga-vegetable plan) were sold.
It is yet another example of how hard it is for the average Type 2 diabetic to make head or tail of the conflicting advice.
