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LCHF bad for cholesterol/heart disease?

@melliemars

Hello and welcome to the forum As you can see from the replies so far, LCHF has been successful for many members. Here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it helpful. It includes a lot of advice on carbs and includes a link to the Low Carb Program. Ask more questions when you need to and someone will be able to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEW MEMBERS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you'll find well over 210,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.

There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

  • Reduce your carbohydrate intake
  • Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates
Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a free 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)
  • Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l
However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

  • structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
  • self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic.

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
 
Hi melliemars
I was diagnosed T2 just over 2 weeks ago with a Hb1c of 112 and BG ranging from 18-22mmols .... I wanted to help myself so researched what was available and read posts on the forums.. I decided to reduce my carbs slowly and last Sunday commenced a strict LCHF the food is great I'm enjoying trying /cooking new foods and watching my BG decrease ..3 days ago I dropped below 10mmols for the first time and today lowest 5.6 needless to say I'm very happy and intend to continue with this great new way of life.
 
Well done!

I also eat LCHF (most of the time...) and my BG hangs around between 4 and 5 most of the time, which is nice of it .
My cholesterol readings are now considered good instead of high (not sure what the actual readings are because I don't have a copy of them but my GP is impressed).
My blood pressure is also considered good for my age and the fact that I'm still very overweight .
Sadly the only thing LCHF hasn't done for me is weight loss, I think I need to try intermittent fasting...
Trouble is I like eating!
 
Wow! Well done!
 
what a fantastic result wow... did you become a vegetarian on the journey of LCHF or have you been a diabetic all the way ?
 
Freema said:
what a fantastic result wow... did you become a vegetarian on the journey of LCHF or have you been a diabetic all the way ?
Click to expand...
I have been vegetarian for 27 years .. so before my LCHF ... It was the low fat that was bad for me !! now I swapped to full fat and reduced my carbs all is good
 





Meena ;

I think you are right about avoiding bacon and red meat ,...... but fats are actually very good for our Health in many ways for our skin for our hair for our homones not the least... and if hormones are well balances most people are feeling very healthy... women fluctuate more in the homonic aspect than do men, and therefore fats are really good for the woman body... but the healthier choices are of cause what to live from

https://draxe.com/10-ways-balance-hormones-naturally/[/QUOTE]
 
Diabetes is bad for heart disease. That is certain. There is some dispute about cholesterol.
 

I think just about everybody who actually follows a LCHF diet does extremely well. From what I have read it depends on what type of fat that causes problems. It is my opinion that there is too much emphasis on the HF bit.

Fat provides 9 calories per gram. For example, you'd need 36 to 62 grams of fat when consuming a 1,600-calorie diet per day, 44 to 78 grams if eating a 2,000-calorie diet per day and 58 to 101 grams of fat when consuming 2,600 calories per day. Healthy Eating, so they reckon about 2,000 / (78 x 9) or about 28% of our calories.

This also agrees with my Weight by Date software.

Whereas the NHS say:

Most people in the UK eat too much saturated fats. The population on average gets 12.6% of their energy (kJ/kcal) from saturated fats, which is slightly above the 11% maximum recommended by the government.

  • The average man should aim to have no more than 30g of saturated fat a day.
  • The average woman should aim to have no more than 20g of saturated fat a day.
  • Children should have less.

Trans fats are found naturally at low levels in some foods, such as those from animals, including meat and dairy products.


Trans fats can also be found in hydrogenated vegetable oil. Hydrogenated vegetable oil must be declared on a food's ingredients list if present.


Like saturated fats, trans fats can raise cholesterol levels in the blood. This is why it's recommended that trans fats should make up no more than 2% of the energy (kJ/kcal) we get from our diet. For adults, this is no more than about 5g a day.

Huge difference in recommendations, who is right?

For me, always trying to lose weight, with a resting metabolic rate of 2300 cals per day, I should be consuming about 80gms (Healthy Eating & Weight by Date) or 35 gms (NHS). My Weight by Date software says I eat 45gms and that's by trying to follow a low fat diet and I'm still eating more than the NHS recommends.

I suppose we should define what we think high fat means, a question for anyone following a LCHF diet would be, how high is your HF bit.

Personally I tend to follow a LCLF diet because my stomach doesn't tolerate too much fat and my body doesn't seem to metabolise fat properly, preferring to store it as fat. I've followed low fat diets, the current thinking by NICE/NHS, like a lot of people, for many years and it didn't stop my cholesterol going up. However, low carb dropped my total cholesterol dramatically.
 
I think we, as diabetics, are misguided by many different sources - the NHS, the media, to name two - into thinking that we have all these risk factors that need to be addressed. By far our biggest risk factor in the long term is high blood glucose.
Too much sugar partying it's way around our system increases our odds of cardiovascular problems, increases our weight, and causes damage. So, the first thing to address is the cause of that sugar... and the way of doing that is to reduce carb and sugar consumption. Deal with that issue, and the rest will follow.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
I
I suppose we should define what we think high fat means, a question for anyone following a LCHF diet would be, how high is your HF bit.
Click to expand...

This is the way I think of it ...
Carbs - 4 calories per gramme. I let myself have up to 50g per day, so that's 200 calories
Protein - I understand the recommended daily protein as 1.5 -2g per KG of lean bodyweight. For me that's about 100g. 100g x 4 calories = 400 calories.

So that's 600 calories per day from low carb and moderate protein. The rest of my intake, therefore, has to come from fat. My total intake for maintaining weight should be around 1700 calories so that's 1700-600 = 1100 calories of fat, or about 110g.

Summary
50g carb = 200 calories
100g protein = 400 calories
110g fat = 990 calories
Total = 1690 calories per day

I like my meat so in practice I tend to eat more protein and less fat. However rule of thumb, minimal carbs and roughly equal quantities of protein and fat yields the right mix for LCHF.

It's worth noting that I find I have to really commit to LCHF to keep my body in "fat-burning mode", or nutritional ketosis as it's properly known. If the body gets carbs it will always consume those in preference to fats and will only be in ketosis when carbs are very low.
 

I think that is why most ketogenic followers try to have less than 20g of carbs per day.. any more than that and you are much more likely to come out of ketosis. At least that's what the 2ketodudes recommend.
 
Agreed. I was on <30g for a while, but I find I can tolerate up to 50g. Any more than that, though ...
 
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