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Is a vegan diet effective for a T2D on orals?

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Google is my friend. :D

The brand that I use (Megadrops) was specifically 'prescribed' for me because of the high dose and because it is Methylcobalamin. There is no mention of it being vegan friendly on any of the sites and packaging I have just looked at. Nor is there info on how it is produced.
My German is pretty useless, but the site doesn't mention vegan friendly, as far as I can see.
Ingredients:
Vitamin B12 (Methylcobalamin), Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (Kapselhülle), Presshilfen und Trennmittel: Microcristalline Cellulose und Reisextrakt..

Google provided a study describing how B12 is now usually (always?) produced by microbial cultures
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5282855/
The science is way above my head, but at no point did I spot a description of what they were feeding the microbes on - so that may not be vegan friendly.

The Vegan Society website was interesting, in that it encouraged the readership to eat fortified food sources of B12, and supplement where necessary, even providing a named, vegan friendly supplement, that is stated to provide sufficient B12.
https://www.vegansociety.com/resour...hat-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12

I am therefore confident that yes, B12 supplements are available for vegans, as well as sufficient dietary sources, if they wish to go that route.

The Vegan Soc link above states that:

The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms. Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid anemia and nervous system damage, but many do not get enough to minimize potential risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.

To get the full benefit of a vegan diet, vegans should do one of the following:
  1. Eat fortified foods two or three times a day to get at least three micrograms (mcg or µg) of B12 a day
  2. OR Take one B12 supplement daily providing at least 10 micrograms
  3. OR Take a weekly B12 supplement providing at least 2000 micrograms.
Ed to add:
Interestingly, the doses recommended by the Vegan Soc are much lower than the doses that I need to take to keep my own B12 above testing as deficient - and that is with plenty of B12 in my diet from non-Vegan sources.
 
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Dark Horse said:
Not all people with type 2 diabetes are the same so their response to a vegan diet is likely to differ. For some, a vegan diet may indeed allow good diabetic control. For others, it won't. If you have tried a variety of vegan meals and your blood glucose has responded unfavourably then it would probably not be wise to pursue veganism if you want good diabetic control on your current medication.

This paper discusses the pluses and minuses of vegan eating with regard to health:- https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/89/5/1627S/4596952
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Interesting paper and will take some time to dissect and digest. My first impression is that it relies heavily on a few major studies that have been found to be not as reliable as one would have hoped. I am talking ADVENT, ADVENT2 and OXFORD-EPIC.

These studies all claim to show vegetarins having better lives than non vegetarians, but each of these studies chose participants from a closed community. Advent and Advent2 both only enlisted Seventh Day Adventist church members, and EPIc only vegetarians, with no non veggies allowed. Advent was performed over Lent period when most church members were fasting and eating unleavened bread in the main, so introduces an immediate bias towards grain products.

All these studies, and most of the referenced studies I saw are what are known as Prospect studies in that they rely on epidemeological evidence to look for possible effects that can be studied properly later. This type of study is at best an educated guess, but does not provide the controls and checks needed to make serious judgements from. They do not for instance find causes of why things go the way they do, and they are not reliable for making policy statements from.

There are very few referenced studies that actually involve the general populace, and most are only looking at the vegetarian side of the fence. Even the meta analysis studies seem to cherry pick their targets.

The content of the article seems to be better and does list most of the commonly acknowledged nutrient shortfalls. However the studies done by Chan and Wang have been shown to be of a poor standard and the D3 supplement they used was found to be non viable. Their conclusions were consequently weakened by this.
 
Brunneria said:
So I reject the argument that 'Vegans need to supplement, therefore it isn't a healthy diet'
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You can reject it but non the less it is true the vegan diet does not provide all the nutrients a human body requires and is therefor unhealthy people with health issues affecting their ability to absorb B12 does not negate that but reaffirms that without sufficient B12 proper heath can not be maintained I can live without metformin but even while taking it my B12 levels are fine. I don't think that would be the case if I where following a vegan diet as well as taking metformin.

.
 
Oldvatr said:
Interesting paper and will take some time to dissect and digest. My first impression is that it relies heavily on a few major studies that have been found to be not as reliable as one would have hoped. I am talking ADVENT, ADVENT2 and OXFORD-EPIC.

These studies all claim to show vegetarins having better lives than non vegetarians, but each of these studies chose participants from a closed community. Advent and Advent2 both only enlisted Seventh Day Adventist church members, and EPIc only vegetarians, with no non veggies allowed. Advent was performed over Lent period when most church members were fasting and eating unleavened bread in the main, so introduces an immediate bias towards grain products.

All these studies, and most of the referenced studies I saw are what are known as Prospect studies in that they rely on epidemeological evidence to look for possible effects that can be studied properly later. This type of study is at best an educated guess, but does not provide the controls and checks needed to make serious judgements from. They do not for instance find causes of why things go the way they do, and they are not reliable for making policy statements from.

There are very few referenced studies that actually involve the general populace, and most are only looking at the vegetarian side of the fence. Even the meta analysis studies seem to cherry pick their targets.

The content of the article seems to be better and does list most of the commonly acknowledged nutrient shortfalls. However the studies done by Chan and Wang have been shown to be of a poor standard and the D3 supplement they used was found to be non viable. Their conclusions were consequently weakened by this.
Click to expand...

In my view, any ‘study’ whose designers allow such obvious selection bias should be automatically discounted, and that’s before we even get started on the statistical game of Top Trumps called epidemiology.
 
Oldvatr said:
Interesting paper and will take some time to dissect and digest. My first impression is that it relies heavily on a few major studies that have been found to be not as reliable as one would have hoped. I am talking ADVENT, ADVENT2 and OXFORD-EPIC.

These studies all claim to show vegetarins having better lives than non vegetarians, but each of these studies chose participants from a closed community. Advent and Advent2 both only enlisted Seventh Day Adventist church members, and EPIc only vegetarians, with no non veggies allowed. Advent was performed over Lent period when most church members were fasting and eating unleavened bread in the main, so introduces an immediate bias towards grain products.

All these studies, and most of the referenced studies I saw are what are known as Prospect studies in that they rely on epidemeological evidence to look for possible effects that can be studied properly later. This type of study is at best an educated guess, but does not provide the controls and checks needed to make serious judgements from. They do not for instance find causes of why things go the way they do, and they are not reliable for making policy statements from.

There are very few referenced studies that actually involve the general populace, and most are only looking at the vegetarian side of the fence. Even the meta analysis studies seem to cherry pick their targets.

The content of the article seems to be better and does list most of the commonly acknowledged nutrient shortfalls. However the studies done by Chan and Wang have been shown to be of a poor standard and the D3 supplement they used was found to be non viable. Their conclusions were consequently weakened by this.
Click to expand...
The EPIC study included all dietary groups. I was one of the 65000 participants. Nutritional studies are notoriously difficult to conduct as there are so many confounding variables but this one did have a very comprehensive questionnaire. I am concerned that you have misquoted this study as I usually find your posts of interest and relevance. .www.epic-oxford.org/methods
 
I dont see a problem with taking supplements to make my diet healthy due to some food restrictions I have. Why would it be a problem for vegan type 2's to do the same?
 
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I just did some research on B12 sources and Marmite is both a good source, and vegan : )

I love Marmite!!!
 
Diakat said:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6153574/

On lunch so have not read through and not sure if it deals with orals.
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Only talks of insulin dosage.

Of the 27 studies referenced, 7 were authored by ND Barnard, 3 by Walter Willett, and 3 use data from the Adventist studies. At least the body of the text seems to correctly use the term associated. It does however use the EPIC study to show differences between vegetarians and non vegetarians but the EPIC study only researched vegetarians.
 
lucylocket61 said:
I just did some research on B12 sources and Marmite is both a good source, and vegan : )

I love Marmite!!!
Click to expand...

I used to be a huge fan of Marmite until I chose to give up everything worthwhile spreading it on. Someone recently suggested cheese, but honestly I think the Big M in or on anything would probably be a trigger for wanting some toast :***:
 
JohnEGreen said:
You can reject it but non the less it is true the vegan diet does not provide all the nutrients a human body requires and is therefor unhealthy people with health issues affecting their ability to absorb B12 does not negate that but reaffirms that without sufficient B12 proper heath can not be maintained I can live without metformin but even while taking it my B12 levels are fine. I don't think that would be the case if I where following a vegan diet as well as taking metformin.

.
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Of course a vegan diet can provide all the nutrients a human body requires. I just showed that in my last post, and the Vegan society link goes into plenty of detail.

If you use the false argument that vegans cannot be healthy eating vegan foods (which include marmite, nutritional yeast flakes and fortified milks), then you must also accept the same criticism of every other diet that ever needs supplementation. So that would be just about all of them. Here in the west folic acid supplements are added to bread because people don’t get enough nutrition from food. Something like 60% of the population is deficient in magnesium
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11425281
And
https://openheart.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000668
And
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fd8f/df22cd36353f5e3445bf35084c5b1771bd7a.pdf
Low carbers often supplement with salt, don’t they?

There are many, many, ways of eating vegan, from vegan processed junk food, to real food home cooked, well researched and nutritionally balanced.

Remember when the anti LC hunting Cry was ‘it isn’t healthy because it isn’t nutritionally balanced!’
Well that was a load of nonsense.
A well formulated LC diet is packed full of everything needed.
And exactly the same can be said of all the other diets out there.
Plan a bit, educate yourself a bit, eat foods that give you what you need, in appropriate amounts, and build yourself a well formulated diet.

So, i will allow myself a cheerfully sweeping generalisation:
All diets are healthy, if well formlated, and none are healthy if badly formulated.

I love marmite too.
 
Dr Snoddy said:
The EPIC study included all dietary groups. I was one of the 65000 participants. Nutritional studies are notoriously difficult to conduct as there are so many confounding variables but this one did have a very comprehensive questionnaire. I am concerned that you have misquoted this study as I usually find your posts of interest and relevance. .www.epic-oxford.org/methods
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They seemed to have separated the vegetarian part on its own, then amalgamated it into the results later
http://www.epic-oxford.org/oxford-vegetarian-study/

Not clear how this was actually achieved and if the questionaires were compatible.
 
There are many plant based meals where Marmite would be a good seasoning. Many of us low carbers also eat some grains, including bread. I think it is a good idea to widen my food tastes by adding marmite to soups, and other meals.

I have been having a mooch around the other parts of this forum and its been a revalation to me of how many low carb plant based dishes there are out there.

There are many oral medications for type 2 diabetics and the title of this thread refers to type 2's on oral. I assume that includes those who have to eat a certain amount of carbs to avoid hypos. In which case, the field of choice for plant based foods for them is even wider than for me.

And low carb is, according to this website, 130g a day or less. So the question of if a plant based diet is good for Type 2's on orals is a wide one, as the safe carb intake for them will vary and may well be higher than some on here advocate. My intake, for example, is 100g a day and has kept me in safe levels for over 7 years.
 
Brunneria said:
>>>>>
Remember when the anti LC hunting Cry was ‘it isn’t healthy because it isn’t nutritionally balanced!’
Well that was a load of nonsense.
A well formulated LC diet is packed full of everything needed.
And exactly the same can be said of all the other diets out there.
Plan a bit, educate yourself a bit, eat foods that give you what you need, in appropriate amounts, and build yourself a well formulated diet.

So, i will allow myself a cheerfully sweeping generalisation:
All diets are healthy, if well formlated, and none are healthy if badly formulated.

I love marmite too.
Click to expand...
May I too make a sweeping generalisation or two
The majority of people thinking of converting will read the papers, watch the social medis or news, or talk to friends. They will not be thinking of planning in the way that you suggest, only of planning their launch party menus etc. The spiel I have been subjected to does not mention any weaknesses in the diet that may need supplementation or selection of fortified foods to cover, and this is also fairly true of this website. There is a need for education and guidance instead of the hard sell cures-all messages. Remember that even on this site there are many who do not self test their sugars so would be in ignorance of damage being done if they are like me allergic to grains and starches. Also I have regular lab tests to check my bloods etc so many deficiencies such as B12, Iron, Folate etc will show up there, but again this will not be available to all in the forum,

I think this site could sticky the following, but there may be a better source for the info.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-vegan-diet/
However, much of this advice is inappropriate for me, hence this thread.
 
I had hoped to be in the 30s with my lastest Hba1c test, but no, 42 again even though I am down to a maximum of 40 gm of carbs a day.
My carbs are from salad and veges with berries a couple of times a week.
Even if I hit 40 gm of carb - that is so few calories. All the rest of my requirements come from a small amount of olive oil or animal sources.
My energy requirements are low (impossibly low according to some) but I just can't get my numbers to add up without zero or almost zero carb foods. I have added a zero carb soya yoghurt to my diet for something which doesn't require cooking and can be eaten chilled in this hot weather.
I don't eat meat and fish etc. without being mindful of it having been an animal - but the options open to me are not many nor are they varied.
It doesn't help when I look at a packet of Quorn product and find that it is too high in carbs to eat anything else in a meal.
 
Does anyone know where we stand with Carageenan? Is it safe? It seems to be geting into everything nowadays,
 
Oldvatr said:
Does anyone know where we stand with Carageenan? Is it safe? It seems to be geting into everything nowadays,
Click to expand...

It’s been getting into food for centuries. No reports of side effects that I am aware of.
 
Anyone got any comments on soybean oil, The GMO variant in the US (Plenish) claims to reduce the risk of diabetes and obesity.
 
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