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Is there truth in this????

G

gowest12

Well-Known Member
Messages
133
So I’ve posted a few times this past year as I was prediabetic and got my hba1c back into normal zone doing low carb and moderate fat but I keep getting told it’s not reversing our insulin resistance it’s just a band aid? I’m getting so fed up with conflicting info and what sort of diet to follow. Up till now I’ve been doing low carb and eating quite abit of fats to fill me up like Greek yoghurt, cheddar cheese and peanut butter. I will post here what someone posted on a glucose support page as it’s something I keep getting told and I don’t know if this is true about fat???its to do with a book called glucose revolution where people are taught hacks how to lower glucose spikes.

I’m concerned about something! Isn’t one of the biggest causes of insulin resistance the consumption of excess dietary fats, specifically saturated fats?
Sure, if you maintain a lower carb diet, your A1C will be lower and your glucose won’t spike as much. But this is just suppressing insulin action. What actually would be increasing insulin sensitivity would be to limit saturated fats..
I don’t see this talked about often!

When a person with T2D or insulin resistance consumes so much as an apple after maintaining lowcarb, their glucose goes to the moon! That’s not curing yourself at all. The true cure would be to regain insulin sensitivity, right? The only way I’ve seen this done is with high complex carbs and low saturated fat..
 
I'm guessing that the first paragraph of your post is you 'speaking' and the second and third are quotes, but it's a bit unclear. If you're still able to edit your post could you put some quotation marks in so it's a bit clearer.
gowest12 said:
I keep getting told it’s not reversing our insulin resistance it’s just a band aid?
Click to expand...
I happen to agree (with that bit at least).
 
Some perspective here.
Low carb or a diet with good saturated fats is used as a treatment to control blood glucose levels, and for many, like myself, it has worked. Controlling spikes is what does help with your health. It is not a cure.
Most of those predisposed to T2 or prediabetes will have an imbalance in their glucose/insulin response after food. Insulin response and insulin resistance will dictate the spike.
Saturated fat does flatten the curve after eating, which also makes you feel fuller, satiated.
Most T2s have too much insulin in their blood (hyperinsulinimia) and too much insulin is not good. And most of it is ineffective. Your pancreas is overworked when glucose is too high (hyperglycaemia).
Then if you look to discover what low fat is, and what has replaced the fat is more sugars (for taste) and of course it is processed and full of ingredients that I tend to stay away from.
I would also stay away from polyunsaturated fats.
You also have to remember, that a carb will spike you regardless of glycaemic index, and wether mixed in with saturated fats or protein, carbs will still spike you.
Only continuous, low carb and controlling BG levels in and around normal levels, will help with your health care, and put you into remission.
And I repeat there is no cure, no magic pill to cure the imbalance. Only control.

There are a number of books and papers, doctors, endocrinologists and even nutritionists that will tell you that the high carb, low fat theory, doesn't work.
Low carb and using animal fats help me so much to control my BG levels.
 
I’m wondering if this is coming from a vegan site? They are often strongly anti saturated fats as the vast majority are animal based and this alone makes me double check any such claims for real science rather than morality. To date I’ve not seen anything that convinces me reducing fats will restore my insulin sensitivity. There are significant accounts including many in these forums of peoples tolerance of carbs improving once levels are restored to normal for a period and issues like fatty liver resolved. That’s not so say it’s a “cure” but to me that is clearly insulin sensitivity being improved. We are still diabetic and if we continue to push the boundaries the damage that has already been done and the predisposition we always had will rear it’s head as a renewed diagnosis.

Also the spike that they refer to with the apple example may well be them confusing a very temporary physiological insulin resistance (aka adapative glucose sparing) with long term pathological IR. If you low carb consistently then up yes a sudden increase in carbs will produce a significant rise in blood glucose. It takes just a few days to “carb up” ie retune your body to expect more carbs and overcome this exaggerated response.

Alternatively they are criticising it’s not a permanent “eat anything you want cure”. Do they achieve that on low fat? I wonder if they have an answer for what happens to their solution if they go back to eating the fats they avoid? Do they revert in the same way they disparage our method for?
 
My initial reaction is "so what?"

The piece admits "...if you maintain a lower carb diet, your A1C will be lower and your glucose won’t spike as much." That is exactly the point. Lowering carb intake allows insulin levels to be lower and insulin to work as effectively as possible, rather than suppressing insulin action.

No-one sensible claims that low-carb is a cure - it patently isn't. What it does do is enable people like me to manage an incurable condition and avoid damage from high blood glucose levels.

The rest of it is just assertion without evidence - and relies on use of the "straw man" fallacy. As has been mentioned before, a lot of information on the internet is unreliable at best and dangerous at worst.
 
As I understand it, the problem with fat is that too much of it deposited around your organs, which include the pancreas, can put stress on the organ and cause it to have to work harder to produce insulin. Then you eat a load of carbs, and the poor old overworked pancreas groans as it has to pump out a load more insulin, and fails to produce enough, so your blood glucose spikes. If you are a normal weight without a lot of excess fat around the pancreas, it doesn’t have to work so hard to produce insulin, so even if you have insulin resistance, it’s more likely to produce enough.

Eating a meal with fat in slows down the speed at which your body ‘soaks up’ the glucose, so the pancreas can produce insulin slowly at a rate that (sort of) copes with the glucose. If you look after your pancreas by keeping your weight down so it is relatively free of deposited fat, it produces enough insulin easily enough to deal with the carbs you eat.

So being a sensible weight and having just enough fat in your diet to slow down the rate carbs turn to glucose is ok. A combination of a generally healthy low-carb diet with modest amounts of fat works well for me.
 
Our bodies DO NOT store consumed fat away, they store CARBS away in the form of fat. Two totally different things. Dietary fat is burned for fuel or excreted.
Diabetes CANNOT be cured, only controlled. If they come up with a miracle drug, that fully restores Insulin sensitivity, then you would have perfect control, not a cure.
 
Yet many of us have lost weight while eating a low carb diet with healthy fats (ie only minimally processed).

In addition to me getting my T2 into remission I also lost lots of weight and my fatty liver resolved, while getting my triglycerides down and keeping other cholesterol markers in a range my GP is happy with.
 
That's not entirely correct. Bodyfat is the product of glucose - it's how the body stores excess glucose in the diet. This was a very important feature when we needed to lay up as much fat as possible in late summer/autumn to see us through the winter. The glucose was derived from fruits and veg etc which only ripened at the time.

I guess dietary fat has been thoroughly demonised in the last 40 years . However dietary fat is not stored as body fat. The issue with eating a high fat/high carb diet is that the body will use the fat as fuel and store any excess glucose produced from the carb as bodyfat. It seems to be the case for some people (I'm not one) that eaing fat with carb will delay or slow carb digestion. So the glucose hit might happen instead four to five hours after consumption, and maybe it might be a bit lower. I don't see that this is such a great thing necessarily. It will fool you if you are testing at the two hour mark; the eaten carb still goes in; you still have to digest it and deal with it. In terms of low blood glucose impact, you can produce pretty much the same effect with alcohol, but I don't see anyone advocating that.

Whatever works for you is fine for you. The issue I have is the "just enough fat" which kind of begs the question of what that is, how you achieve and maintain a "sensible weight" etc. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with "slowing carb consumption" as I eat hardly any carbs. And I've lost >60lbs eating what would be described by many as a high fat diet and returned normal BGs for over three and a half years.
 
Similarly, I have lost a necessary amount of weight and put my BG into the non-diabetic range by eating keto-friendly veg. fats and proteins and avoiding carbs and sugars. I don't measure anything, I eat until I've had enough food, am very restricted on exercise and eat plenty of natural animal fats and olive oil. But as said above, whatever works for you works for you. What I do works for me.
 

I've said this a million times and I'll say it again.

What works for YOU is what matters. What works for another person is irrelevant if it doesn't suit you for some reason, so our personal quest is finding what works for ourselves. For me, the enabling tools to do that were a blood glucose meter, a means of recording results and notes, some time invested reading, some fora, some clinical papers and some listening to my body.

I was diagnosed almost 10 years ago, on a single A1c result, but it was at 73, so pretty free from doubt, but since then, my results have been in the low 30s. I eat reduced carb, with as much fat as I consider sensible on any day. I am not driven by metrics, or consider that something "naughty" will ruin my life in any way (provided that "naughty" isn't every day.

One thing I will say though is that our bodies like routines - whether that is adequate sleep or credible levels of exercise (by that I mean, moving about a bit, but not expecting to run a marathon any time we feel like it, without preparation), eating and drinking.

In terms of our digestive systems, it gets used to the sorts of things we eat and drink. If we then do something left field, like take in much more sugar, fat or whatever that we have been doing, it may not be able to cope. Think Christmas dinner, and being comatose afterwards, or something very, very fatty and having indigestion; reaching for the Gavisocn. Repeating those events would often bring improved results, because our bodies might be rather more prepared and generate the appropriate enzymes.

That's all rather a ramble, but it comes down to doing your own learning, lay your bets and live your best life.
 
Hi @gowest12. Good to see you again.

I'm pretty sure I have strongly suggested to you before to do a deep dive into the whole saturated fats are bad for you argument - get books out of the library, read up on studies, read up on the recent history of this idea. Come back in here and discuss your readings and findings, once you have made them, and you will have very engaged discussions I am sure.

And, at the same time look at the incredible complexity of the blood glucose regulation system, the Randle Cycle, with regards to glucose in the presence of dietary fat. This is easily accessible online. Take a gander at the Krebs cycle also, for the cell level stuff. This I have also suggested before. What did you think when you looked at those diagrams? If you didn't before - be interesting what you think looking at them now.... (my teacher genes coming out).

The idea that it is dietary fat found in nature in a 'package' with really nutritious sources of protein in ancestral food sources that is causing the recent cascade of blood glucose dysregulation amongst we humans, seems..... hmmm... begging belief (is a nice way to put it). But that's just my thoughts on the matter.

If you do decide to experiment with your own now non-diabetic state, having successfully reduced your blood glucose into a healthy range, by attempting to improve your insulin sensitivity by eating a high level of carbohydrate, and lowering how much dietary fat you eat - I would be fascinated to read your results. But. Gowest12, I personally believe that to be an extraordinarily dangerous to your health experiment, and hope to goodness you don't do it! High insulin production comes AFTER high glucose consumption, not the other way round, according to my understanding.

At the very least - please get a studying. Only you can decide what of what you read in terms of theories and studies is more likely to be true. Imho.
 
 
Can you advise what foids you were eating ...My husbabd is type 2 but doesn't need to or want to lose weight . My concern is that we would love to get Diabetes into remission but worried that he would lose too much weight ...I do not have Diabetes but would join him in cganging eating habits ...Thank you fir any advise
Regards Jo
 
Usually those that want to maintain their weight still cut the same carbs for blood glucose control but increase fats and proteins. In someways maintaining is a trickier balance to find than losing as it’s like Goldilocks and needs to be “just right”. It’s a matter of adjusting and seeing what happens over e few weeks and adjusting again etc.
 
We have one of our forum members actually doing a realtime experiment on himself, and he is using a High carb Low Fat vegetarian / vegan diet. He posts his readings from before and after a meal. so far his results are at least twice what I am achieving with LCHF. I do not envy him in his results.

Eight years ago I was maxe'd out with 3 diabetic meds at maximum dose, and my bg; was constantly in the 20's and 30+ range. None of the meds was working for me and I needed to go onto insulin.

I did not and I started low carbing instead. My HbA1c dropped from106 to 54 and I came off most of my meds in a couple of months. I have been prediabetic / non diabetic levels since then.

I went from 18 stones down to 10 stones in that 2 or 3 months, and I am steady at 10 stone ever since. My waist shrank from needing 40" waistband to using a 30" waist pair of jeans now. My belt that I had used for over 10 years needed taking in by couple of inches.

I can now eat carbs again, but I have to be careful and still use LCHF principles. But for me a pecan slice on the odd occasion will hardly cause a blip. So my insulin resistance is greatly reduced but not necessarily fixed for life. I consider myself to be in control and I eat a varied and easily prepared diet now. I do not carb count nor do I calorie count. I just take care to avoid certain food groups.
 
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