Diabetes Uk dietary advice

Stephen, there are only 3 macro nutrients but quite a variety of ways of arranging them in a diet.
It's interesting to see how the various commercial diets vary. You might be interested in this analysis of various diets. It highlights where they may be deficient nutritionally and the macronutrients in both grams and percentages. Its in French but self explanatory.
(charts p 8 and 9)
http://www.afssa.fr/Documents/NUT2009sa0099.pdf

phoenix said:

Stephen, there are only 3 macro nutrients but quite a variety of ways of arranging them in a diet.
It's interesting to see how the various commercial diets vary. You might be interested in this analysis of various diets. It highlights where they may be deficient nutritionally and the macronutrients in both grams and percentages. Its in French but self explanatory.
(charts p 8 and 9)
http://www.afssa.fr/Documents/NUT2009sa0099.pdf

Click to expand...

That's a great table Phoenix, it'll give me many hours of pleasure! It's a pity that the they didn't express it in terms of percentages, because the calorie intake varies so much. I might have a play around with it in Excel this evening.

There are 3 macro nutrients, but only two of them are truly variable. I understand that, across various cultures, people naturally limit their protein intake to 15% of energy (see below). There is a good reason for that, protein is principally used for meeting structural needs, with the excess used as a back up energy supply through gluconeogenesis. The conversion of protein to glucose is inefficient (58%) and doing so involves inceasing your cortisol levels.

Jaminet has some compelling stuff here that suggests that, across all animals, appetite is finely tuned to make sure that you get just enough protein to meet your structural and gluconeogenesis needs and not any more.
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/01/pr ... mposition/
This results in the 15% protein intake which is apparently typical of all humans.

Paul Jaminet said:

People tend to gravitate toward a protein intake of 1520 kJ (360 calories). This can be construed as the “normal” human protein intake, and tends to occur near a carb+fat intake of 8000 kJ (1900 calories). So the “normal” protein fraction of the diet is 360/2260 or 16%. This is consistent with epidemiological data, which finds that nearly everyone worldwide eats near 15% protein.

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So, if you assume that protein is more-or-less constant (which is reasonable), there are only two-macronutrients left, and therefore considerably less variability.

Stephen, we're very off topic. I'll just add that the report suggests several of the diets are very high in protein. (percentages are in the chart) I've just found the full report, very detailed discussion and lots of graphs including a very pretty one plotting protein/fat/carb percentage http://www.anses.fr/Documents/NUT2009sa0099Ra.pdf

phoenix said:

Stephen, we're very off topic. I'll just add that the report suggests several of the diets are very high in protein. (percentages are in the chart) I've just found the full report, very detailed discussion and lots of graphs including a very pretty one plotting protein/fat/carb percentage http://www.anses.fr/Documents/NUT2009sa0099Ra.pdf

Click to expand...

Thanks Phoenix. Maybe we can discuss this in another thread when I've had a chance to look at the numbers. I think that the whole "food reward" thing is fascintating.

My view is that although certain diets push excess protein as an appetite suppressent (as described above), we should be looking at sustainable diets (if possible based on what we evolved to eat). At 4kcal a gram, you don't get very far from trading protein for fat.