LOW CARBING IN 1916

Hey, very interesting but bad luck if you didn't like vegetables!!! :lol:
Wonder what happened regarding lack of vitamins in the diet?
Amazing how, in the 'olden days' they appreciated that carbs were so important but now the medical profession don't seem to encourage diabetics to watch carbs! Confusing ...
Thanks for that, Peter

Excellent thanks, will have a good read of it tomorrow. As they say what goes around comes around. Just hope its not glam rock and 70's fashion :lol:

Diane (aka Eilean13)

My greatnan was a T1 all her life and i remember being told that all she could eat was vegetables and sometimes all she smelt of was cabbage. When she was diagnosed it was about 1920.

J

Don't forget to wash the veggetables 3X to get rid of the carbs (and nutrients) !
The trouble with the starvation diet is that it did no more than prolong life. For some children perhaps only weeks to a couple of years, for adults a bit longer. ...we don't know what sort of diabetes older people had from the statistics of the time .
'The Starvation Treatment of Diabetes' from 1916' doesn't tell you what happened to the patients after discharge, they didn't know and said so

It is, of course, too early to say how far reaching and how permanent
the effects of such a diet will be in the severe and in the milder
cases of diabetes.

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All of them would have been quite sick when they went into hospital (either with T1 or latter stage T2), They had very high glucose levels.
We do know now, at least we know the figures for the Joslin hospital where the diet originated.
length of time from diagnosis to death Joslin 1914-22
(the Allen Era )
Age
Under 10 .........2.9yrs
10-19............. 2.7 yrs
20-39 .............4.9yrs
40-59............. 8 yrs
60 and over ......6.4 yrs
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 8-0003.pdf
Yes the diet kept some people alive for a while but it really was starvation.
One of the first children to receive insulin, Elizabeth Hughes was on the diet from 1919-22. Sometimes her diet was kept as little as 400calories a day . By todays standards her glucose levels may still have been relatively high since the diet was adjusted by testing urine. By the time she received insulin

'Almost fifteen years old, she weighed 45lbs (just over 3stone, or 20.5kilos)She had dry skin,brittle hair and "wasted" muscles. "She was scarcely able to walk on account of weakness" Cheating Destiny

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: Living with Diabetes James S. Hirsch

Crikey that makes for sad reading Phoenix, thank heavens that insulin was finally discovered!

Nigel

My Gran is diabetic. She doesn't eat much. She's not starving - she just doesn't eat much. She's 85 and smokes like a trooper.

Just sayin'.

Patch said:

My Gran is diabetic. She doesn't eat much. She's not starving - she just doesn't eat much. She's 85 and smokes like a trooper.

Just sayin'.

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Sounds like my mother-in-law although she's just 70!

That generation are just made of tougher stuff. I just hope I've inherited a little of it!

Patch
That generation are just made of tougher stuff. I just hope I've inherited a little of it!

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Patch
(fell off over the weekend - ate a kebab and chips on Sat. night.

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Or just Missing that odd gene :lol:

A scary but riveting read..whisky for kids and thrice boiled veggies (ewww!).

Thanks for posting the link.

Dr Andrea Eenfeldt shows a book for Diabetics from 1917 in his AHS presentation (at around 26 minutes) which he contrasts later with a recent pamphlet showing that the advice seems to have done an 180 degree turnaround -- in 1917 Diabetics were advised to avoid Sugars and Starches... for example : Flour, Bread, Biscuits, Rice, Macaroni Pasta. But the recent pamphlet advises: Fruit, Rice, Pasta, Potatoes, Bread.

[youtube]FSeSTq-N4U4[/youtube]

The point he makes is that these foods are now advised because they raise the BG slowly (which for many of us is not even true) but why aim to raise the BG at all?