British Dietetic Association Policy Statement re Low Carb Diets in Management of Type 2 Diabetes

Summary, in my words, “it seems to work the same as low fat in the the first year. We don’t know what it does afterwards. We still push the eatwell avoid sat fats and moderation message. We want more evidence”. So in fact goes no further than they have since 2011 when they admitted it worked short term.

HSSS said:

Summary, in my words, “it seems to work the same as low fat in the the first year. We don’t know what it does afterwards. We still push the eatwell avoid sat fats and moderation message. We want more evidence”. So in fact goes no further than they have since 2011 when they admitted it worked short term.

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However there are a number of us here who can confirm that it works long term as well.

We don't count though as anything we say is 'anecdotal'.

4th paragraph of Summary introduction provoked a raised eyebrow:
"More research is needed to ascertain the long-term health impacts of a low-carbohydrate diets, including on heart health."
not sure at this point why they are targeting heart health or feel the need to draw attention to it...will have to read on, although at 1st bullet point I transitioned to irritable......

"The BDA believes that:
Low-carbohydrate diets (i.e. defined as diets containing between 50g and 130g carbohydrate) can be effective in managing weight, improving glycaemic control and cardiovascular risk in people with Type 2 diabetes in the short term i.e. less than 12 months (Diabetes UK 2018). This is probably due to the accompanying reduction in energy (calorie) intake and subsequent weight loss (Diabetes UK 2018)."
Where is the evidence that it is "probably due to" calorie reduction, why say that? aaargh! It's fine not to know, it's fine to say we need more evidence, it is not fine to pre-empt that evidence (you don't know, you can't know, there is a fairly vigorous public debate between very respected and qualified individuals taking place, books have been published etc etc).

My toys have been ejected from the pram, I will have to try to read on later.......

Dark Horse said:

The BDA policy statement, 'Low carbohydrate diets for the management of Type 2 Diabetes in adults' can be found here:-
https://www.bda.uk.com/improvinghea...tatement_-_low_carbohydrate_diets_t2_diabetes

They say that,

'A joint working group of The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) NHS England and Diabetes UK, with input from the BDA and Royal Colleges, is reviewing the evidence on low carbohydrate diets compared to current government advice for adults with type 2 diabetes. It is expected to report in early 2020.'​

and that,

This BDA policy statement (written by dietitians with clinical expertise in treating people with type 2 diabetes) is intended to state the BDA’s view point in the interim and it will be reviewed as necessary, following the publication of the joint working groups report​

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This may be relevant
https://www.vegansociety.com/society/whos-involved/partners/british-dietetic-association

copilost said:

Where is the evidence that it is "probably due to" calorie reduction, why say that? aaargh! It's fine not to know, it's fine to say we need more evidence, it is not fine to pre-empt that evidence (you don't know, you can't know, there is a fairly vigorous public debate between very respected and qualified individuals taking place, books have been published etc etc).

My toys have been ejected from the pram, I will have to try to read on later.......

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I agree with you. They say it's probably calorie reduction I suppose because they still can't admit that they were wrong and that carbs are the real problem. I too find this so frustrating, irritating and totally irrational. The rant that follows will probably not make sense, I am just too cross to properly string a sentence together.

There's a large group of us succeeding with low carb when we have not been advised to follow this path by the medical profession. This group of people have now been proved they were right to go low carb and tell others the good news re low carbing, so I would say that there is a certain amount of intelligence involved in dismissing the Eatwell Plate advice and taking it on ourselves to low carb, in spite of previous official advice to the contrary.

We prove that we can carb count because we are successful in controlling our T2 that way, if we didn't have a clue about carb counting then low carb simply wouldn't work. Yet they don't believe us when we say we were quite capable of calorie counting too before we discovered low carbing! I was recently accused of estimating my calorie intake incorrectly before I low carbed and therefore the person did not believe I had actually increased calories when I started following a low carb plan yet still lost weight. How dare 'they' judge us like that. I did NOT estimate it, I weighed and measure everything. Then the suggestion was that people forget to include oils etc when calorie counting! Give me strength! We have the intelligence and common sense to work out for ourselves that the medical profession and DUK were wrong in its advice to us and we also have the intelligence to calorie count properly.

Come on, BDA, medical profession, DUK, nutritionists etc just admit you got it wrong. It is not about calorie reduction, it is about T2s being carb intolerant.

Thank you DCUK for being here and letting us share our experiences with each other.

I don't understand the first bullet point about low carb achieving glycemic control and weight loss due to loss of calorie s energy.
To me this is contradictory as the calories energy is replaced with fats, therefore it's the type of calorie energy which effects the glycemic control. Therefore there is no reduction in calories at all. It is the amount of carbs causes weight gain and loss of glycemic control.

Oldvatr said:

This may be relevant
https://www.vegansociety.com/society/whos-involved/partners/british-dietetic-association

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Thank you, call me naive but I hadn't realised that the BDA was so close to a vegan organisation. I thought it was about general dietary advice.

copilost said:

4th paragraph of Summary introduction provoked a raised eyebrow:
"More research is needed to ascertain the long-term health impacts of a low-carbohydrate diets, including on heart health."
not sure at this point why they are targeting heart health or feel the need to draw attention to it...will have to read on, although at 1st bullet point I transitioned to irritable.......

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Surely that's a really complex issue to untangle with regard to diabetics, who may also have high cholesterol and be on various medications? And isn't weight loss good for heart health? *Sigh*

The BDA haven't a clue about diet for anyone let alone diabetics. They follow SACN who use research from various UK universities and if you dig down you will find the research is funded by food companies and a few pharmas and food companies make a lot of money pushing carbs. Hey presto SACN recommend loads of carbs. Virtually all UK institutions apart from DUK follow SACN/PHE advice hence obesity. What would we do without DUK!

zand said:

Thank you, call me naive but I hadn't realised that the BDA was so close to a vegan organisation. I thought it was about general dietary advice.

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That explains more research needed for long term health, for low carb diet on heart disease. I maybe jumping the gun or being pre-emptive here, surely there I fewer research done on veganism and diabetes for long term studies for Theo ho are diabetic.

I look forward to studies being done on all diets, properly executed studies with good reputable science behind them, and follow ups. I would love to have unbiased information so I can make informed choices on my diet.

PamJHS said:

Surely that's a really complex issue to untangle with regard to diabetics, who may also have high cholesterol and be on various medications? And isn't weight loss good for heart health? *Sigh*

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As one who suffers clogged arteries par excellance, My heart consultant is quite of the opinion that the buildup he seea in the angiogram is not because I followed low carb diet for the last 4 years. In his words it takes much longer than that to build up plaque like wot I got, and was from earlier days. Those days when I followed Eatwell for example, and held to a low fat diet,

He advises me to continue LCHF since it brings my sugars under control and that is way more important to heart and cardio health, He understands that cholesterol in the diet has no direct connection to plaque.

It would be interesting to see the conclusion on all result done with the studies. I think it I'll be some bias, plus too many variables for complete in-depth studies.

Daibell said:

The BDA haven't a clue about diet for anyone let alone diabetics. They follow SACN who use research from various UK universities and if you dig down you will find the research is funded by food companies and a few pharmas and food companies make a lot of money pushing carbs. Hey presto SACN recommend loads of carbs. Virtually all UK institutions apart from DUK follow SACN/PHE advice hence obesity. What would we do without DUK!

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Do you really mean DUK as in Diabetes UK, or DCUK which is this site?

I will sum it up without the scientific jibber jabber!

If you know the foods that you're body cannot tolerate, don't eat them!
If the foods you have don't cause blood glucose fluctuations, then eat them!

Your body will benefit from a balanced intake of protein and fats.

Dietary advice should be tailored to the individual!

zand said:

We don't count though as anything we say is 'anecdotal'.

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Would do if we submitted ourselves to a cohort study like Type 1 Grit members did. Just need maybe a University, someone like David S. Ludwig who can access our Doctors records:

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/6/e20173349

rant on // I understand risk, it's risky to say "eat saturated fat, don't eat carbs" when we don't know what will happen in the long term or possibly medium term, I get that. But there's another risk, what if promoting low fat, high carb is actually making me sick, right now. I can't wait for these people to feel OK with change, I have to do something for me, informed, as best is possible I hope, today, not when they feel it's "valid". Also they should be listening, they are not the boss of me and it's not happening to them. rant off//

oh dear rant on again// they should involve us, we are doing experiments on ourselves because they won't, doesn't that make us an amazing scientific resource? //rant off