• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

high carb low carb I am confused

Status
Not open for further replies.

Hi canuck1950,

I wonder if you could clarify something here, on your blog you state the following:

''If you do a proper low-carb diet you can get off your medications''.

Now we have low-carbers on here and also there was a forum set up specifically for those that low carbed which has recently closed down temporarily, most of these members have followed a low-carb diet for years with great success following diets by the likes of Atkins and Bernstein, all claim that they are now getting numbers of non-diabetics which to my mind is fantastic.

Now the problem is that although they achieve great success you will find many are on diabetes medication and a few were using or contemplating using insulin to keep their control tight, some are on bp meds also along with cholesterol lowering drugs, so given what you have said about ''If you follow a proper low-carb diet you can get off medications''.... are you implying then that they are all doing something wrong after all this time bearing in mind what I have said about them achieving non-diabetic numbers?

Regards

Nigel
 
I suspect the clue is in the line:
''If you follow a proper low-carb diet you can get off medications''
Click to expand...

So many that claim they are low carbing are in fact only reducing their carb intake. That's how a lot of misleading info is bandied about whereby claims are made that low carbing doesn't work. If the carb consumption is still high compared to true low carbers then one may not get the desired results.

My carb intake varies according to the meal, but generally, the only carbs in my diet come from green veg. Any glucose requirements are met by the liver. I'm sure many who say they are low carbing are cutting down and going low GI. which is not the same.

Ray
 

Mmmm interesting! So despite the fact that many do follow a ketogenic diet claiming to eat below 30g of carbs a day what is it they are doing wrong then if they are still using meds and insulin? Many of your friends Ray and to whom you contribute to a low-carb blog class themselves as ''true low carbers'' and would imagine will be offended to know they aren't ''proper low carbers'' in the eyes of you and Canuck1950.

Would still appreciate Canucks feedback.

Regards

Nigel
 
Some definitions are lacking here.

What is low carb?

What is high carb?

Also are other control methods being dismissed?

People have ideas of what high/low carb are but there needs to be some clarification as opposed to views and opinions. I think the title of the topic sums it up. :roll:
 
In my own case, Nigel, when I was diagnosed with Type 2 I was morbidly obese with a BMI of 43. I currently take 5mg (?) of Lisinopril to control my slightly elevated blood pressure.

When I started Atkins in 2004 (pre-diabetes) I was on 15mg of Lisinopril. By the time I had lost 40lbs I was off the BP meds, and down to the 110/70 area. My HCPs were all astonished 'cos the accepted principle seems to be once you're on it, you're on it for life. My cholesterol and blood glucose levels dropped significantly, too, though they had never required medication previously. I ate at Induction level the whole time, and lost 5.5 stone in total.

I slipped off Atkins at the end of 2005 for a variety of reasons, and in 2010 ended up back where I had started, with diabetes to boot. As soon as I was diagnosed diabetic, even though in denial :shock: , I went straight back on Atkins. The weight loss has been much slower this time, but it is going - 3 stone in 14 months instead of 4. I am confident that I will soon be able to stop the BP meds. My cholesterol is dropping too, and my lipid profile is fine.

Obviously I can only speak for myself; but from my own experience, a low-carb diet, say under 30g, is good for weight loss, bg, bp and cholesterol. If anyone out there has done Atkins properly, and has gained weight and increased their bg, bp and cholesterol, I would genuinely like to hear from them!

And if this is promoting a low-carb diet, I apologise! It works for me. All I can say, is check it out for yourselves. I know that other people control their diabetes well with other ways of eating, and Atkins is not for everyone. We should all come back in 20 years time (1st July 2031) and compare our results. Or meet up somewhere and have a great survival party

Viv 8)
 
What is this obsession for definitions here? It comes up again and again and seems wholly insignificant.

Low carb means only eating the amount of carbohydrate that you can tolerate at the lowest dosage of medication without having an adverse effect upon your blood glucose levels.

Might be 20 grams might be 150.

As a Type 1 with no innate insulin response and insulin resistance that means for me pretty much 30 grams a day is the maximum I can handle. For a Type 2 with only a moderately impaired insulin response then the levels could be much higher; Catherine Cherub seems to be able to tolerate a higher level of carbs than me and gets a better HbA1c than me; which is fine, she's not right and I'm not wrong and vice versa. We are both 'low carbers' under my definition.

The point is though that so little attention is given to the newly diagnosed to what strikes me as being the key issue of diabetes management; and that is carbohydrates are not good, healthy and essential; they are the problem and you have to address that to get any sort of sustainable control.

It would be a happy day when we move away from the People's Front of Judea / Judean People's Front* arguments over who is a low carber and who isn't.

Dillinger


*(splitters - not as bad as the Judean Popular People's Front mind).
 

Dillinger, it at to happen sooner or later but at long last we are in unison with what you have wrote above.............this is what everyone on the forum has been advocating for a very long time!

The issue I was addressing was that we have someone who is saying that those who do achieve excellent bg control through a very low-carb diet are being told they are doing something wrong if they are still on diabetes medications or other meds such as bp or cholesterol lowering drugs. Any views on this?

Regards

Nigel
 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Now I'm even more confused, according to Ray I am not a low carber and according to Dillinger I am. :roll:
 

Hmm, well, yes, and no. Carbohydrates are clearly a key part of the complex condition that is diabetes, but it's not the only thing. Also if carbs are 'not good, health or essential' then why don't people cut them out completely? Is that sustainable control? I think it should rather be that excessive carbohydrate consumption, given your personal circumstances, is not good, healthy or essential.

As you rightly point out, the amount that individually qualifies as excessive is what's crucial (hence the focus on definitions etc.). For some people very low carb (say 20-30g per day) may well be sustainable, for others it may not. I think that more attention should be given to the whole picture - it's not all about BG levels. Very tight control may well not be desirable (or indeed could be dangerous) for some people. Added to that, tight control but a very unhappy lifestyle to achieve it isn't sustainable or desirable. If you can live with what it take to get there, great. Not everyone can. I am also T1, and have an HbA1c of 5.1 at my last test. That's too tight for me. I greatly reduced my carbs to get there, and now have lost a degree of hypo sensitivity as a result. I'm bringing my numbers up with, you guessed it, a bit more low GI carb in my diet and rebalancing my insulin. My personal plan was to exclude lots of things, get to a good level and slowly reintroduce some low GI carbs until I reached a happy balance. Not there yet, but on the way. However the way I did low carb has harmed me, at least temporarily.

I respect your right to share how you do it, but object strongly to anyone who suggests that very low carb and high fat is the ONLY way to do it (and no, I'm not suggesting that you are doing that either). I think everyone here pretty much accepts that some level of responsible carb reduction is key. However, with no consistency of definition, newbies are going to be highly confused by whether they are actually low carbing or not. And there's a lot of ways to get under 7.5% (or 6.5%) HbA1c.
 
Dillinger, first you say
Low carb means only eating the amount of carbohydrate that you can tolerate at the lowest dosage of medication without having an adverse effect upon your blood glucose levels.
Click to expand...

Surely that is more about carb management, I know I've certainly be called a high carber (not a term I would use)

I'm not going to rehearse the benefits of whole grains here. I'll give one general reference
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionso ... index.html note the CVD section.

At diagnosis we may have very different requirements and saying that carbs are unhealthy and not essential is , in my opinion, wrong.
Here's some answers to an interview with one young man with T1,
(Kris Freeman)

What if a young person told you this in an introductory post and he also told you that he was very active.
Luckilly, he wasn't just very active he was very good and was a member of a national team so didn't have to resort to the internet.
Here's what he did

and he went on to cross country ski in the next 3 Winter Olympics.

Notice he is careful to manage his carbs in quantity and quality, notice also that those foods that you have claimed are not essential are very much part of his diet .
Now I'm no Olympian, yes I'm active but I'm almost 60 and no way could complete a long distance ski event, However, I'd describe my diet in similar terms. (though necessarily far fewer calories and probably eat a few more foods I know aren't good than he does!). As you know I've had an HbA1c in the 5s for 6 years now doing that .
 
phoenix said:
At diagnosis we may have very different requirements and saying that carbs are unhealthy and not essential is , in my opinion, wrong.
Click to expand...

Well Phoenix, you may not be an Olympian but you are no fool either; "essential" has a very specific meaning in dietary terms, and carbohydrates are not essential, because without them in the diet at all the body could still produce glucose for its limited requirements there.

Your Olympic skier complies with my off the cuff low carb definition, because I'm not saying 'no carbs' I'm saying reduce to the level your blood sugars approach normal levels with as little medication as possible. But the thing is most newly diagnosed diabetics are told to 'eat normally' and avoid fat and all the usual stuff and that's the limit of their dietary advice and as we have all found out, to our cost, that is rubbish advice for a diabetic.

Lastly, I would wager that there is a far closer association between high HbA1c's and CVD then there is between reduced CVD risk and consumption of whole grains. What drives high HbA1c's is eating too many carbs, whole grain or otherwise.

To be honest I'm still in a bit of state at having realised that Nigel and I agreed on something.

I think I'll go and have a lie down.

Dillinger
 
Dillinger said:
To be honest I'm still in a bit of state at having realised that Nigel and I agreed on something.
Click to expand...
:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
I don't understand why low carbers are so maligned and misrepresented here. Firstly, "We are all different" is turning into a mantra, so let's look at that.

We all need oxygen, we all need water we all need a collection of nutrients/vitamins/ trace elements in that way we are not different from each other.

Where we do differ is how our bodies cope with different substances. As an example the liver of some people lacks an enzyme that enables it to deal with alcohol. An old Chinese friend of mine used to be swaying about after half a pint of lager - yes we are different from each other in some respects. So it is with carbohydrates. We do not need grains in any shape or form. Bad news for the grain industry and carb addicts, for that's what they are - addicts. Just as smokers and other addicts will find any excuse to justify their continued usage of their substance of choice, so do carbophiles. We do not need to seek out carbs to eat, as generally they are unavoidable. In addition the liver supplies any that's needed for bodily functions. Even green leaves contain some carbs, albeit a small quantity.

We are different when it comes to our apparent tolerance of carbs. Some can consume large quantities without any apparent harm befalling them. I say apparent because there are theories that although blood glucose readings may give an illusion that all is well, damage to internal organs is taking place. In other words, it can come back to bite us in the future.

So we have posters saying they are fine eating carbs, that's just fine for them so long as they appreciate they may be causing themselves long term damage. Like the smoker who claims his lungs are fine. Yeah - check him out in 20/30 years.

Some low carbers continue with meds. Metformin is thought by many to have other health benefits and not to cause damage so they continue. Also don't forget they have already been damaged by the high BG they have suffered in the past.

Some say they are low carbing but still consume Low GI carbs. To me that's like switch ing to filter tipped cigarettes.

We are perfectly free to eat what we like, nobody is saying otherwise. But, it is important that everybody understands the risks.

I hope I've made my position clear to everyone who doesn't choose to be deliberately obtuse.
 

This is just laughable now, are you really trying to tell me that carbs are like class A drugs and tobacco and because I am able to eat some I am an addict, I would find that quite offensive if it wasn't so funny :lol: :lol:

Do your own thing Ray but please stop telling the rest of us how to life our lives. If carbs are killing everyone how do account for the continued increase in the world population and the increased average life span?

Many diabetics live quite happily without low carbing to the extent that you suggest we all do. To me you are just scaremongering, if a diabetic has their bg levels under control why should they change their lifestyle, just because you say they should?

I have no problem with anyone's diet not even yours Ray what I have a problem with is your evangelical approach to promoting it with scare tactics, I think everyone on this forum is cabable of making up their own minds on whether carbs are causing damage to our internal organs :roll:
 

:?: :?: :?: :?:
The position has been made very clear. Clear as mud.
 

I think you've made your position loud and clear Ray, jut a pity you just can't accept that 'we are all different' and don't appreciate being told that we are on the wrong diet or that we shouldn't be using prescription meds when our bg, bp or cholesterol readings say otherwise. The sooner you realise this you'll find peace in yourself and will be able to enjoy life to the full without having to think you must change the world on how we eat and live.

Best wishes

Nigel
 
Ray - we understand the position you're coming from. As Nigel has said, we are free to choose the right diet for ourselves that keeps us happy and healthy, the risks associated with food are well known and moderation is the key to good health.

Low carbers are not maligned and misrepresented - it simply appears some people are very passionate about their diet and are very provocative to those who do not share identical views. Can we be a little more compassionate please, Ray.
 

I find what you wrote above quite offensive Ray but at least you didn't call us names or swear at us like a certain "RAY" in another forum did and still does, hope it's not you Ray, is it?

Even green leaves contain some carbs, albeit a small quantity.
Click to expand...

Well, seen as carbs can be dangerous maybe you should eat stop eating green leaves and anything else that may contain any carbs, after all, you don't want to be labeled as a "carb addict" would you? :roll: :roll: :roll:

This argument is getting sillier by the day and you Ray have taken it even further. It's not because we are "addicted" to carbs and we HAVE to eat carbs to be able to survive, NO, we eat it because WE CAN and we have the freedom to choose whether we eat it or not, unlike some people who have no choice because their bodies can not tolerate the carbs. And very much unlike the ones who choose to believe that carbs are evil and refuse to eat it and try to force people to see it their way. :evil: :twisted:

You know that x-smokers moan more than those who have never smoked in their lives, now I can safely say that some x-carb addicts are even worse than x-smokers!


Edited to insert missing word, "some" (in red above), sorry if I offended anyone unintentionally.
 
noblehead said:
The sooner you realise this you'll find peace in yourself and will be able to enjoy life to the full without having to think you must change the world on how we eat and live.

Best wishes

Nigel
Click to expand...

Oh hippy days or was it the flower people? :lol:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…