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In the news.

Fleegle

Well-Known Member
Messages
775
Location
Denmead
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I was absolutely amazed yesterday to come to the site after reading the news on the latest ND press release.

I wonder why there isn't far more positive and balanced views expressed here. Surely - even if you personally do not want to "try the shakes" or "afford to lose weight" or "think the only way is LC" there should have been a far more positive view on the near 50% of people who have got their BG under some form of control. Why this undercurrent. Is it really simply because it is not LC? Why oh why do we have to constantly have this LC - VLCD war? It is beginning to wear me down.

I read many testimonials on here from people with great stories of how they got their BG under control through LC and quite rightly they get oodles of positive feedback - like's. There was never ever - well it isn't really scientific - what no carbs - well it isn't really reversed is it - no just 100% good quality support.

But if it isn't LC - there is a definite and from some quite a strong negative spin on the whole thing and I wonder why?

I notice many of those posting although they assure they only comment on what they have tried - they haven't in fact.

Why is it that on this site we do not embrace and support all kinds of different treatments - particularly one that at least has some form of science and explanations behind it with what is becoming not only quite a wide trial but is supported by hundreds and hundred of personal experiences showing that they have improved their BG.

And for someone who has at least tried both - On LC - I lost a ton of weight - I got my BG under good control but I had two major problems. 1. Even the sniff of a carb sent me off the scale - I was eating less and less to get good control and having to walk more and more - and 2. I was getting the liver dump issue. Both went away on the ND where I was on near 100g carbs (10 fold increase) and my liver dump just went away.

Interestingly since the ND completed for me my up and down curve is much better than it was under LC but as I return low carb my liver dump has returned. I am now able to eat many more carbs including chips and some sweet foods at times and keep my BG at a good controlled level on occasions and even had a mince pie recently with very little BG impact. I can assure you that licking the knife used to cut a cake previously raised my BG notably.

Does that mean I am anti LC - not at all - fantastic. DOes it mean I am cured reversed regressed - not enough to just eat what I want all of the time.

But for any newbie arriving and reading all the poor press - don't listen to all it - make your own mind up - be open minded and if you feel confident with your GP support do not reject the ND diet the results are speaking for themselves. And certainly do not reject LC or think the two things are not two great weapons in the war on the disease.
 
if someone achieves results then i would praise them. however meal replacement diets are very iffy. they dont condition you to adopt a new lifestyle, failing to do that will not result in long term improvements.
we could have separate sections for different diets.
 
What attracted me to this forum was the diversity of methods that people used to control their diabetes and their honesty in admitting that they were not 'cured' but 'controlled'. The 'news' yesterday will give some people in the nhs a bit of a shock if they are honest and consider the implications - that they may have been giving people the wrong advice for many years and not really considering diet as an option. The only problem with an extreme diet is the transition back to 'normality' when the target is reached. The problem with LC is the gradual creep from an occasional treat, to a weekly event.

The problem with T2 in particular is that different things work for different people, so much depends on their situation, diet, work pattern, finances and emotions. I choose to delay for as long as possible taking drugs of any sort, this may not be the choice of someone else who accepts the benefits that they are told come from taking the drugs. Are either of us wrong? We are both right if making the choice that is best for us given the information available. The problem with the nhs is the general rule that one size fits all and the belief among some Drs and nurses that they are always right and the patient must always follow their recommendation or suffer the consequences.

ND will work for some people, modify it with the principles of LCHF for those who do not want to lose weight and for some who need strict control go with the VLC route. We all have to find our own way to deal with the diabetes, the test is does our method work for us? If it does then all is well, if not then something else needs to be tweeked or tried.
 
There are seperate sections for different diets and imho that is the place for zealotary and / or detailed discussion about the particular approach
News of research finding about anything to do with diabetes is in my opinion most appropriately placed in the more general diabetes discussion section and I do not think the “ my diets better than your diet” nonsense we sometimes see in response is appropriate or helpful
 
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No different to low carb diets -if you do not stick to it - or any other program same results.

Have you tried the ND using shakes? Are speaking from experience of trying it - making the progress shown and then falling off it?
 
I largely agree, but would add that I dont see the difference between ND and VLC as being a difference between the aim of weight loss and the aim of strict control - both diets are different means to achieve the same end i,e control of T2 diabetes.
 
I would think that anyone who has recently tried the ND way of managing T2 or who is thinking of doing so will be very heartened by yesterday's news and so they should be.

It's not the way that I would chose but at the end of the day it will be for some others. Yes the discussion did get a bit overwhelmed by those of us who have 'issue's' with aspects of it, which is a shame. I was thinking this last night and I'm glad that you have started this thread Feegle.
 

Completely agree.

All reading this thread - please do not give up on the idea that you may find the ND a good choice for you and research it hard to find out. Do not let the negativity that surrounds anything not low carb put you off. Don't let the shakes put you off or any other form of diet - in fact I was in Tesco the other day and found myself looking at the strawberry diet shake and thinking "well just one would be nice... "
 

I like those wise words - and if people are open minded and do not post utter rubbish in some form of effort to try and make it something it is not - positively or negatively - then that would be fair. And I personally felt the attention the fantastic news got yesterday was unfair and showed the strong and almost overwhelming attitude to anything that isn't LC.

Very sad after reading it all yesterday and wondering what a new member would make of it.
 
The biggest problem that i have with Newcastle Diet style fast weight loss severe calorie restriction is something that is rarely considered by people starting such diets.
- the damage it does to long term basal metabolic rates.
And yes, I am speaking from experience. I survived on shakes of 300 cals a day for months in a weight loss regime. And i have used Slimfast. And i am now living with the consequences.

Jason Fung has an excellent blog post on the subject of calorie restriction, and my own personal experience validates his every word.
https://idmprogram.com/biggest-loser-diet-explained/
I did a number of these severe calorie restriction diets in my late teens and early 20s.
Lost a shedload of weight, but 30 years later i STILL experience their legacy.
My metabolism now adjusts to even severe calorie restriction within a few days. So i can drop my calorie intake from 2,000 calories to 12,000 and lose weight for about 3 days. Then my weight loss stalls, because my body just downgears its energy usage to match the new intake.
Same thing happens with regular intermittent fasting.

I heartily wish i had never started the low calorie diets, and am convinced that I would be in better health if I had stayed fat, fit, and a steady weight with a steady metabolic rate.

So how can i endorse that new enthusiastic people risk doing such damage to themselves in search of something that has a less than 50% success rate and may ALSO result in long term changes to their metabolic rate?

I really try to be supportive, to respect their decisions, and to celebrate their weight loss.
I am absolutely genuine when I post this congratulation and support.
I celebrate every pound that people lose, because I know how hard it can be, and how delighted they are.

But in the back of my mind I am thinking 'oh dear. I REALLY hope that you won't be one of the ones whose metabolic rate learns to adapt, and who is teaching their own body to store any excess calories and regain the weight even easier. I hope you don't end up in a worse situation than before. I hope you realise that you may now face the rest of your life watching every mouthful, endlessly restricting your intake. I hope you are not bitterly disappointed if you are one of the majority who don't 'reverse'. And i really hope you are able to make the tricky transition back to real food'

Of course, no one filled with New Diet fervour wants to hear these things. If i express them I am just the fat old failed dieter in the corner who lacks the will power to do it properly. Yeah. Right. I have lost about 140pounds by these diet methods, in several attempts. And kept a heck of it off for about 15 years. No 'reversal' for me. But the new enthusiasts always believe that it will work for them. No pain, no gain, they think. Eat less, move more. All the standard dieting mindset that historically achieves very little.

I see the ND as a route to a short term goal, nothing more. And a route that carries a number of risks which people are rarely aware of when they embark on the ND journey. It saddens me that people bounce about saying 'Hey! I lost 15% of my bodyweight! It works! Isn't it FAB!' When they haven't got a clue what will happen to them and their bodies as a result of the ND over the next few decades.
 
I suppose the difference between research data and our n=1 findings is one of scale and therefore of its wider applicability.
I also found severe calorie restriction in my younger years didn't help a jot with weight loss and it was only dealing with food intolerance that did but out individual experiences are nothing more than that and from a medical point of view are only relevant at the individual level and should never be generalised
The objective data on ND so far is that it is a significantly successful intervention for a significant % of people following it. The data that emerges over time re long term effects is yet to come but we should never pre judge the outcome based on n=1 data.
 
Thank you @Fleegle
I was thrilled yesterday when @himtoo posted a link. By the time I had read the link and posted I felt everyone was anti.I so much admire people for tackling their diabetes head on and particularly those who have used the Newcastle diet approach. I didn't as my GP was anti so I lost weight just by reducing calories and it took longer. I feel there are so many different approaches that work for different people and would want to encourage anybody in an approach that works for them. I am not anti LCHF but am concerned about high fat for me. I'm almost feeling scared to air my views as any method other than LCHF seems to get shouted down. When I joined almost 3 years ago there were lots of people trying the ND. Not all succeeded but a lot did. I don't know for how long and that would interest me. I would like to read the full research from the latest study but seem expensive from the Lancet.
 
I was accused of being negative on one of those threads, incorrectly in my opinion. I am not personally against the ND and when people doing it and keeping a diary on the forum, I congratulate them on their success to date and try to support. Just as I do with anyone else reporting a success, no matter which diet they follow. I just don't think we have been given enough information on the full results of this exercise.

I still can't get my head round the criteria the ND team set for defining remission. (A 15kg weight loss and HbA1c of under 48 with no medication for the last 2 months, maintained for 12 months after the start.) This is what is upsetting me because I can't see how on earth anyone can be in remission if their HbA1c is in the 40's. We don't know (or at least I don't know) what the HbA1c of these successful people was at the end of the period. It could have been 47 and they would still be classed as in remission. That to me is daft. I really hope I'm wrong and that all the 46% had HbA1cs in the 30s. I would also like some data on the remaining 56% and reasons why they didn't manage it.
If someone has this data I would like to see it.
 

That is quite a negative post isn't it? My point QED. If I had of posted LC is our saviour I would not have received such a response I am sure.

Can you send me the clinical study into the long term effect of LC please? (Decades please).
Can you send me the paper on LC clinical study at a UK university. Short term, long term any will do.
Can you evidence that any of the things people are trying work for everyone in decades?

Do you not think - that if enough people get positive reinforcement and try it then we might see results and monitor ourselves over time.
 
I do wonder though on this diet what would happen when people started to eat normal foods. It was suggested on LBC radio when talking about these shakes that it could actually make the BG worse once a person started to eat normal food again. I have just posted a video on the Diabetes page about a woman who has done some reading research about very low calories and how it can cause depression and anxiety because of our bodies going into starvation mode. What she is saying makes perfect sense. She has been doing Keto and has lost a lot of weight. A really good video.
 
My negative thoughts about ND are not connected with LC at all. I dont see the relevance of an either/or situation. Whatever works, works.

My reservations are about the lack of complete information long term follow ups (say, 2 years) and the lack of info in general on why it only worked for half the participants, and what happened to the ones it worked for.

It seems a drastic thing to do with so little full info. Sorry if that sounds negative. It sounds like common sense to me, when trying to make big life changes, to have more info.
 
I suppose the choice people make with any diatery approach to diabetes, be it VLC, Nd, or whatever is do they trust their gut instinct and try it now or do they wait several years for a full peer reviewed, long term data to be amassed
 

I think you should re-read my post. I did not mention low carb once. I was talking exclusively about ND style severe calorie restriction diets (which have been around in shake form since at least the early 80s, because that is when i started using them.

basically you asked for people's personal experiences on long term very low calorie diets, and when I give one (which happens to be based on decades of experience by myself, backed up with a link to Fung who has some excellent refences on the subject) you suddenly start asking for long term studies about low carb.

Not going to play that game.
You asked for feedback.
You got it.
You are not receptive to it.
Fair enough (and funnily enough, i mentioned exactly that attitude in my post.)
 
Boo1979 said:
I suppose the choice people make with any diatery approach to diabetes, be it VLC, Nd, or whatever is do they trust their gut instinct and try it now or do they wait several years for a full peer reviewed, long term data to be amassed
Click to expand...
Thats true. I suppose I cant see the logic in some of the conclusions of this study, or even a decent follow up, so I am a bit more wary. It could be that some of the science has gone over my head.
 
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