Dr Sten Ekburg

I was recently diagnosed with T2, and in searching for information, he was one of the first sources that I found. I think he explains the relation of glucose, insulin, and carbs better than anyone else I've seen, and I love his dry sense of humor.

FWIW, using his information I decided not to use the Metformin I was prescribed and do low-carb. Not to brag, OK maybe a little, six days after diagnosis, and I was in pretty bad shape, my glucose levels have leveled out to below 180 on my GCM for 90% of the past 24 hours(I started out spiking in the 300 to 370 range) and I'm starting to get used to the low carb diet.

I'm in the US so I apologize if my numbers or not what you normally use in the UK. I'm still trying to figure out how the scales compare.

Modean987 said:

I'm in the US so I apologize if my numbers or not what you normally use in the UK. I'm still trying to figure out how the scales compare.

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Here you go.
Top two are hba1c as measured in the UK and in the US, bottom two are blood glucose as in the US and the UK. Hba1c's correspond with average BG on the bottom rows.
I've saved the picture for quick reference whenever reading things on US sites.

Thank you so much for that chart! It's quite helpful. At first glance I was kind of deflated by the color coding indicating I wasn't doing as well as I thought I was at around 10.0 (my CGM shows that as being the top of the desirable green zone). But my graph shows that I'm starting to level at around 8.4, so hopefully I can get down to a lower level in another week or so.

Jo_the_boat said:

Good for you.

I would never suggest that advice seen on You Tube be 'gold-plated', however much I agree with Dr Ekburg.

What I think is that videos like this can be used as part of our personal decision on how to look after our own health.

I personally don't trust much 'establishment advice' on what to as a T2 eat. But the majority of people believe what they they are told by the HCPs, even if that advice is way out of date - even dangerous. I didn't dismiss it out of hand. I first looked at the advice many other experts and read about people's personal experiences, then I dismissed it!

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Oh I totally agree! YouTube is a huge source of misinformation, but there are some gems there, such as Dr. Ekberg, Diet Doctor, etc.

My wife has been on again off again on low carb and plant-based diets, so I was familiar with many of the concepts. Eckberg just resonated with the things that I already knew and explain them in a manner that made sense to analytical "show me the evidence" me.

I'm 68 years old, and I have found through the years to listen to my doctors advice and then figure out if I should follow it or not. He's a good guy, and he's helped me a lot, but he is of the school of "here try this and it should help". I use his advice and recommendations as a starting point and take it from there.

In this case, he gave me Metformin and a CGM. After researching the issue, I decided the Metformin was ...uhm... not a good idea, the CGM was a godsend, and based on everything I've researched and read, a LCHF diet is the way to go… for now, just to get my numbers down AND STABLE while I research if there's a better diet for me.

Jo_the_boat said:

Here's a You Tube video about saturated fat and carbs.

But I think more than that he offers a good explanation of the effect fat and carbs have on us.

I saw a thread about a lady struggling with Metformin and the advice given to try the low carb approach instead.
Dr Ekburg is one of the people I listen to and this video may help her.

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I‘ve not come across this chap before so thank you for the link. He makes it all so understandable. I’ve never been able to get my head around how eating more fats can be a thing, but I do now.