Diets

If your sugars are stable then you won't be doing any harm diabetes-wise. However, eating a diet like that you are putting yourself at risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity. Any of these coupled with diabetes are a bad combination. Whether you're diabetic or not, you need to be eating fruit and veg and watching how much saturated fat you consume.

TonyTruthful said:

Thanks for the reply Elc. Am I right in assuming that being a T1 we are more likely to get high cholesterol and BP compared to a non diabetic with the same diet? Or would those chances be the same? Surely obesity must be the same risk % diabetic or not.)

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Not wanting answer for ELC but your more likely to suffer from high cholesterol and bp if your diabetes is poorly controlled.... although there are people who have tight control yet suffer from both these conditions, genetics have a big part to play here and we can't do much about what we inherited.

I've been type 1 for over 30 years and I've not had any issues with cholesterol, my last one the TC was 3.5 and trigs was 0.7 which is within range, I do take a bp medication although initially it was to keep my bp below 130/70 after developing diabetic retinopathy.

As for your original question, I don't think eating chippy tea's and pizza's are good for you whther you have diabetes or not, OK as an occasional treat but not something you should be eating everyday, a healthy balanced diet is the best way forward for long-term health.

Tony
I would ask why you think Hba1c of 8 is good control.
A non-diabetic tends to have an Hb A1c around 4.2% - 5 %. Yours is going on double that.
NICE target for Hba1c is now 6.5%. You are well above that too.

I'm only too aware that something like 80% of diabetics DON'T control their diabetes and that it's harder for T1s [I'm married to one!}

There are several components to control. Diet, exercise and medicine are the three most of us can handle or take charge of.
thus what you eat is very important.
T1 husband and I both control our carbs. He less strictly than I do, but he's reduced his insulin doses and weight[down a couple of stones] over the last couple of years and his HbA1c [down to 6.5%!]
Hana

TonyTruthful said:

How important is diet for T1’s? I’m fairly well controlled with HAB1c of 8 but I eat a bit of a lousy diet. Now I don’t mean drinking full fat coke or gorging on sweets and chocolate all the time but I tend to eat chippys, pizza’s pasta’s etc quite a lot but still have stable sugars. (albeit an expanding waste line)

I eat a bit of chocolate but only after a meal and being T1 also means I only have 3 meals a day and don’t snack in-between.

I was under the impression though; if you can control/stabilise your sugars then you can at what you want (within reason)? I mean if you are ‘in range’ after two hours of eating, this would then be normal.

What are your thoughts?

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Hi Tony

Whether or not you have diabetes,I think a well balanced diet is essential, with carbs, proteins, dairy, seeds, nuts, fruit and veg.

Having a treat now and then is great ( pizza, takeaway curry, fish and chips etc) but I wouldn't eat that all the time :sick: it would cause increased weight because of all the carbs and the hidden fats.

We went out for the day today and for lunch I had a ham and egg salad, some prawn crackers, a 40g of brazil nuts, a seeded snack bar and 1 gluten free cherry and choc chip fairy cake (made by my daughter and her friend yesterday) it was all delicous I'm having Paella for dinner tonight a yogurt and some M&S strawberries :thumbup:

All the best RRB

Noblehead - you said pretty much what I would have said, so happy for you to answer on my behalf

Tony - the risks associated with high cholesterol and blood pressure are higher for those with diabetes. High blood pressure, for example, puts strain on your blood vessels. This can lead to retinopathy, kidney disease and so on.

As others have said, chips and pizza etc. are fine in moderation but you should try and introduce some healthier choices too. Why not try an egg white omelettes with cheese and tomato instead of pizza? Egg whites are pretty much cholesterol free and are much lower in fat.

Hence why I got for egg whites You can buy cartons of them from sainsburys (in the milk aisle). Much better for you than normal eggs.

My control was awful when I was a teenager. I'm 29 now and happy to say that my control is much tighter. I've been diabetic for 23 years now. I do worry about diabetic complications so try and keep everything in check. Have to be honest though, I do have times where I just think "to hell with it" and gorge on carbs and sweets!!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating carbs as a type 1 diabetic as long as u take the correct novo rapid for the carbs and ur lantus is right.(that's if u use these insulins) I am a type 1 and have been for 25 years and used to be so badly controlled in my younger years. Now on the pump and will never look back on control of carbs and blood sugars

It is fine to eat eggs. They do not worry cholesterol


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Re Hanadr.. Would love to know where you got your figures from. No one diabetic or not should have figures below 4 so stating 4.5 as being normal for non diabetics is questionable. The accepted norm for non diabetics used to be 4-7 but somehow that has been lowered over the years to 4-5. People are striving for rediculously low BS readings & some "may" actually be doing more harm to themselves. Each of us is Very different so we should not be suggesting what is the correct level to be at. Me ..I operate best between 7-9 & I eat well feel well and the Diabetic Docs are happy with that. My GP however wanted me at 4-6!!! Why?? Because tho she is very hot on some subjects Diabetes is not her strong point so she listened to the specialists and agreed that Gov Guidelines are only that GUIDELINES & should be flexible and bent to each individual case. No one has the right to dictate what it correct for all Medic Layman or Joe Public. It took me nearly 2 years to work my diabetes parameters out but they work for ME not anyone else!!!!!

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I get my numbers from a variety of sources. One of which is the information leaflets in a pack of test strips. these give normaal blood glucose at about 5 or just below, depending on make. Bernstein gives a figure of 85mg/dl which translates to 4.7mmol/l
Non-Diabetic HbA1cs usually fall into the range of 4.2% - 4.5%. you can look up what average blood glucose that equates to, but it's pretty low.
The idea of 4 being the lowest permissible comes from a slogan invented a generation ago for "The British Diabetic Association" as it was then. I've met the lady who thought it up. It was really for people using rapid insulins whose levels were dropping.
There is a condition called "Reactive Hypoglycaemia" which some doctors won't diagnose unless they see levels well below 2. They regard numbers above that as safe.
Yes we do all vary a bit in our response, but chemistry doesn't. So our response to foods has some individuality, but there's not much difference in the vascular changes due to high sugars
I regard the upper levels given by some authorities as permissible as being responsible for a LOT of harm. They were set to make things expedient, NOT for patient safety. It's known that damage to systems probably starts at around 7 Even NICE has dropped its target HbA1c levels to 6.5% {whatever that translates to] To achieve that, you can't get many Bs of 7 or above. unless you get matching numbers very low lows
Not only do medical authorities say that it's ok to have levels of 7 and 8 and some even say 10, but they give very poor dietary advice and don't advise self testing for T2. All this leads to the appalling rate of diabetic complications, such as loss of sight, kidney failure and amputations. I have met people who have been insulin dependent diabetics for decades and I don't remember one without some serious complications. I'v been campaigning for a very long time, for better health for diabetics.
Hana

hanadr said:

Non-Diabetic HbA1cs usually fall into the range of 4.2% - 4.5%. you can look up what average blood glucose that equates to, but it's pretty low.

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4.1-4.6 mmol/l :shock:

Hana.. Now i'm really confused by your figures. You say Bernstein equates 85 to 4.7 yet when I was told my HBA1c was 8.3 that equated to 79 on the new guidlines. Does this mean we might all be confusing each other with our figures?? This might explain why so many people on here, justifiably, get confused by the information available from so many different sources. ??????
Mike

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Just to add if my BS falls anywhere near 4 I virtually shut down so get it back up asap. Ive only ever once been near a hypo and I dropped from 10.6 to 4.1 in 75 mins the day after I changed to human based insulin. I'm 50yo type 2 & tried carb counting & was so ill I was found to be damaging my organs by not eating enough carbs so as I stated everyone is different. I still want/need to know which set of figures we should ALL be using now as i'm now totally confused.
M

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lukkymik said:

Hana.. Now i'm really confused by your figures. You say Bernstein equates 85 to 4.7 yet when I was told my HBA1c was 8.3 that equated to 79 on the new guidlines. Does this mean we might all be confusing each other with our figures?? This might explain why so many people on here, justifiably, get confused by the information available from so many different sources. ??????
Mike

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Dr Bernstein who Hana was quoting is in the US. They use mg/dl for blood glucose readings using a meter. The 85mg/dl is the reading that he claims normal people have most of the time (I think he says he tested representatives when they came into his office and that's what they were. 85mg/dl equates to 4.7 on your blood glucose meter.
To change mg/dl to mmol/l as in the UK then divide by 18
Normal blood glucose levels vary just as diabetics do and they will go up after meals. This graph show (in mg/dl) the blood glucose od young people who had 'passed' and OGTT wearing a continuous monitor. The level in between meals for the average person here (blue line) is indeed in the low 80s but rose to an average maximum 132mg/dl (7.33mg/dl) after breakfast. ( see chart 25 ) The brown lines show that some subjects were considerably higher/lower. These were all 'normal'.
http://www.diabetes-symposium.org/index ... 2&chart=20

Hb A1c is the laboratory measurement that reflects your glucose levels over the last 2-3 months. In the UK this is now expressed in mmol/mol but until recently was expressed as a percentage.
(to change HbA1c expressed as a percent to mmol/mol use the converter here .http://www.diabetes.co.uk/hba1c-units-converter.html0 )
The claim that normal people have HbA1cs ranging from 4.2%-4.6% also seems to derive from Dr Bernstein.
David Mendosa investigated how true this claim was and contacted the National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (which forms part of the international standardisation procedures)

Curt told me that every three or four years his lab at the university studies a group of people who don’t have diabetes to scientifically determine what a normal A1C level is. The results from one study to the next are always close, Curt told me. In their most recent study they tested 29 people who lived nearby in central Missouri.

I asked how they knew if the people they tested didn’t have diabetes. “Because we did fasting glucose tests on them, they had no prior history of diabetes, and none of them were obese,” Curt replied.

So what were their levels? They ranged from 4.5 to 6, Curt replied. That’s at plus or minus 3 standard deviations.

I am certainly no statistician. But Curt tells me that it includes about 99 percent of the values
The range is narrower — 4.7 to 5.7 — at plus or minus 2 standard deviations. This includes about 95 percent of the values.

“The upper limit is the more important one,” Curt explained further. “The lower limit doesn’t convey as much meaning.”

They also see “a little skew toward the high end of the range, a bit of tailing at the high side,” Curt continued. In fact, levels below 4.5 are “quite unusual,” and usually are only when people have anemia or other abnormalities of the red blood cells

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http://www.mendosa.com/blog/?p=366

The non diabetic reference range for HbA1c using the 'new units ' is considered to be 20 mmol/mol to 42 mmol/mol (4-6%)

As to hypos. In T1 ( this is a T1 forum) it is important to be aware of glucose levels that are at or below 4 since unlike in non diabetics the insulin that we have injected can't be stopped. (OK this figure may vary a bit between countries but most don't suggest lower than 65mg/dl which is 4.6mmoll)

In the UK the DVLA considers 4mmol/l to be hypoglycaemic and you shouldn't be driving at this level or below (indeed they say 5mmol/l for when you start driving)

xAoifex said:

hanadr said:

Non-Diabetic HbA1cs usually fall into the range of 4.2% - 4.5%. you can look up what average blood glucose that equates to, but it's pretty low.

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4.1-4.6 mmol/l :shock:

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I tested my friends blood sugar a couple of weeks ago, female, 58 yrs has fibromyalga and is often tired and hers was 5.6 ( I still use old money btw ) A non diabetic can be anything between 4 and 6, ( when my DD was tested for diabetes the doctor told me this in 2007, she didn't have diabetes but a Thyroid condition, non medicated) when regarding age,lifestyle,weight, gender etc and for the majority of non diabetics to fall into 4.2 to 4.5 range would seem to be questionable :?: It's borderline hypo in a Type 1 diabetic :shock: :shock:

Best wishes RRB