Low carb diet and HbA1c

LooperCat

Expert
Messages
5,223
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Other
I'd like to see this happen too, because achieving a good HbA1c when dosing for normal eating must be difficult. There's a study of the typeonegrit community who have an average HbA1c of 5.7% (39 mmol/l) compared to the average 8.2% (66 mmol/mol) for T1's which speaks for itself.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6034614/
It's a tricky issue to solve as you have so many health care professionals recommending us to just eat the carbs and dose for them. To change guidelines these people would have to come out and say they were wrong, which is unlikely. Another problem is time. Many of my friends are doctors and they have patient quotas to meet. When you get 15 minutes with a patient every three months it's difficult to educate him on low carb eating. It's easier with type 2, but when you bring insulin into the picture it becomes a whole different ball game as dosing for protein is not as straightforward as carbs.

Saying this, how we treat diabetes is still pretty chocking to me. I've been diabetic for a year and just like you I've been nagged about my low HbA1c. Not once has any of the doctors I've seen mentioned complications that may arise from high blood sugar. I'm doing a kidney test for my next appointment, and when I asked what for the reply was "Oh, don't worry about it, there shouldn't be any problems...yet". Thank god for the internet.
I’m a member of TypeOneGrit :)