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The Diabetes epidemic


How long is long term?
I don't think Newcastle diet method is part of the 'diet industry'. It is an academic study into ways to reverse T2. research still being in the early stages, but having some success, and in the process of long term evaluation.
 

As I see it, some of the widely held frustration of this disease stems around the lack of hard facts. There are so few metrics we can hang our hats on, whether it be that "all T2s carry weight", through, "you can't eat x, y or a", through "T2 is the one that isn't serious, right?", or, "as a T2, you will end up injecting". All of these things can happen, but they're certainly not hard and fast.

About the only metrics we work to are the diagnostic thresholds (which also vary in different countries). but, where is the TV in that?

I would like to have seen more information about successful control (not the cure thing), using the wide range of options available to us, but those who really struggle might have felt that portrayed them as not caring, or not trying hard enough.

The programme makers were on a no-win bet, but as we are now in Diabetes Week, at least there was an awareness raising effort. It feels like we did better than Epilepsy Action and Carers Week, this year at least. (http://www.awarenessdays.co.uk)

Perhaps you could drop ITV or Mr Maitland a note to voice your displeasure.
 
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I can see that for a rapid weight loss, with possible reversal benefits that the diet has merit and appeal. My concern would be that once you stopped doing the diet, there would be the temptation to revert back to the same kind of normal eating that made you diabetic to start with ( by you, I don't mean you personally btw). If done under medical supervision, part of the supervision should be teaching a sustainable post diet diet, one that helps maintain the benefits achieved by the calorie restricted ND, and continues to enable further weight loss. My other concern is whether further weight loss would occur post such a low cal diet- i can only go from personal experience, but my mum lost 8 st on a calorie controlled diet of around 1000 calories a day and now can not eat much more than that without putting on weight, presumably because her metabolism has switched to starvation mode afore years of low cal dieting?
I think you have to do what works for you and I'm pleased that it sorted your BS issues out and has kickstarted your weight loss again this time round.
 

I had reached the point where the only solution to my out of control BG and obesity that was offered was bariatric surgery. The doctor told me that T2diabetes was 'cured' within days after surgery due to the drastic reduction in calories. I argued that I would do the bariatric diet without the surgery, and was told it wasn't possible. That was when I researched and read like mad, and came up with the Newcastle diet info.it took almost two years to persuade my GP to allow me to do the Newcastle diet. I won't be reverting to pre- diet eating pattern, which followed the advice to eat plenty of healthy carbs. My motivation to do Newcastle diet? To avoid bariatric surgery. My motivation since? 3 years non-diabetic blood glucose. No way do I want to have high BG and all those symptoms we all know of, ever again.
 
Ok but if you only watched a couple of minutes then I cannot take your opinion seriously because it is not based on the programme, but preconceived ideas.
 
Ok I forgive you now.
 
At end of day we are all different in our acceptance of food and finding what works for us with foods.

It was a programme warning people of weight factors with a scarey amputation thrown in, butmainly biased towards the general public that are possibly larger and at risk.

I look at children around me and what **** they were being fed....(takeays 6 out of 7 days).... And from my concerns one parent (the dad) is now trying to take control and do what he thinks is better foods...(pasta)...he says it is a start as the kids have less sweets n takeaways....and less calories...when I took them for a picnic months ago their mum just piled in crisps, sausage rolls, sweets. My other friend n her 3 yr old had grated carrot, and cucumber and strawberries and proper salad, like me.

Some people just have no idea about food, the cookery lessons at school are gone.

We had a person on this forum saying that he had to live with parents and put up with their awful ideas on food and he was finding it difficult to escape this trap and cycle.

I personally always ate meat n veg.. But recently thanks to forum realised I wasn't getting enough fat for my gardening work that I do, I always been slim n muscly. Women around me of larger sizes say I am lucky!!! -never educated in food!!

If the population and parents are not educated and have no control over their eating habits, it is inevitable that more people going to end up diabetic.

Some schools banned certain products n sweets fortunately and try to get kids to have wiser choice of foods, but the trouble is parents nowaday... And the access to humongous qtys of rubbish in supermarkets..

I peesonally don't like the word diet as I think it's all about lifestyle choices.


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Yes OK I accept all of what you say here, but the diet industry got there first with these type of diets years ago. Now finally someone has had the sense to study the effects and I am not knocking that at all. This is what should always happen.....anecdotal evidence followed by scientific study to prove/disprove it. I suppose what I haven't said is that as a pre-diabetic/diabetic both weight loss and BG's were/are important to me. When I did a very low calorie diet (600) consisting mainly of veg my fasting BG's got down to 4.9 and I was able to maintain them at slightly higher than that for 2 and a half years or so. So although it wasn't ND, it was along the same lines and achieved similar outcomes.. I therefore don't have doubts that the ND can also achieve this. What I do have a problem with is that on 7 weeks of my VLC I only lost a stone, an average of 2 lbs a week. That (plus a few extra pounds) went back on in the following 2 and a half years. Since following LCHF(with a calorie restriction of 1200 cals) for 10 weeks (including a week off for my holiday!) I have lost 24lbs, so an average of 2.4lbs a week. To be fair I should also say that I have recently introduced metformin and a long walk (6 miles+ ) every 10 days or so, so I am not comparing 'like with like' here, these two factors are undoubtedly helping too. I also have my maintenance diet ready made for me because when I get to my goal weight I can simply eat more of the same, I won't need to re-educate myself to eat the right things because I am doing that already. So now shifting the excess weight once and for all is my priority because excess weight is still harming my health even though my diabetes was under good control for a couple of years.
 
But, trouble is, not everybody can "diet" and then either stop (for anorexics) or they end up back in their old ways, piling the weight back on....and more. Thats why the diet industry is so wealthy and keeps on going. The majority of people see it just literally as a diet to lose weight... They get to weight wanted and either carry on losing or just think I can go back to how I was before.....

Still think the population need educating in lifestyle rather than diets..


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Yes I agree with you donnellysdogs, that's why LCHF is the right plan for me because although I call it a 'diet' now, I know I can follow it for life, I can simply ease up on counting the calories when I reach my goal weight. That's the only change I need to make to have a good maintenance plan.
 
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I, without knowing it have done it all my adult life!! Just didn't realise it....or realise I needed more fat...

Its been my lifestyle choice for 30+ years and I'm still **** healthy on it...

Its why I get so fed up with people using diet as a word.. Wish I could set up a "better lifestyle eating" club.

When our local gym set up circuit training.. Only men seemed to go to it. Since they renamed it 'bums, tums n thigh's' the vast majority that do the circuit training are women... It just goes to show that naming "diets" n "gym exercise" is quite a gain to business.. Perhaps the "better lifestyle club" would work!!-lol


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lol So are there more unfit men around in your area now?! For now I use the word 'diet' simply to remind myself that I also need to be careful about quantity of food as well as quality and that I can't eat a limitless amount of cheese right now if I want to be slim again. But yes, it is 'lifestyle eating' all the same.
 
A tip I read when I first started dieting was to find out what the maintenance level for your ideal weight is and eat that from the get-go, that way the maintenance is already an established way of eating before you get to the level you want, especially when this is something you have to persist with instead of a "diet" and there's no timetable (except the one most people seem to insist on having in their heads) to achieve weight loss.

That said, I still wish I had known about the Newcastle Diet when I was first diagnosed so that I could have tried it. I've been doing some fasting as per Dr Jason Fung, but still seeing no real changes in my BG levels which is kind of frustrating. Would have been nice to have a bit more flexibility from time to time without jeopardising my health, but it is what it is. I just have to keep on keeping on with LCHF for life.
 
To me everything we eat and drink = diet, though I do accept that to some people diet = way of eating to lose weight. Sadly many people still do not understand the need to look at lifestyle in general as a way to stay as healthy as possible. I know cooking and nutrition and exercise were part of the curriculum when I was at school, particularly for the girls. When my now grown up daughter was at school these subjects were considered less important than the 'academic' subjects. I know of teenagers today who are being taught 'food technology', but have not ever prepared a nutritious meal. One lesson was about designing a meal suitable to be prepared on an aircraft. I have also know of grown women upset because some supermarket bought potatoes had soil on them, and another who did not know that a duck laid eggs, she thought they gave birth to live young. So many are used to food that comes in a packet that goes in the microwave.

I think this thread has strayed a bit from the original topic though. What started off as an appraisal of the TV programme appears to have become a battle over which diet / lifestyle eating plan is best. It had already been said that each of us needs to find and use what is best for our individual circumstances. What has been apparent to me is that there has been much focus on discrediting the Newcastle University (prof Taylor et al) study, by people who have neither tried it, nor read up on all of the research. This research is a work in progress, and it will be some time before a full analysis of the long term effects has been carried out. For someone like myself, having tried all sorts of 'lifestyle eating and exercise plans' had I waited, it would most unlikely for me to have benefitted. I consider myself very fortunate to be 'cured' in remission, for 3 years, after being diagnosed T2 nine years ago. Also having got to this stage with no complications.
 
Couldn't agree more, @Pipp.

The whole aim of Professor Taylor's research was to find out whether a dietary regime could mimic the effect of bariatric surgery on overweight Type 2 diabetics. His initial study proved that yes, it could be done. The magnetic resonance imagery seems to implicate a threshold level of visceral fat. I think the man should be applauded for his contributions, instead of being spoken of like he's some kind of weight loss snake oil salesman as nothing could be further from the truth.
 
Thank you, so much, Indy51.
It is only the (rightly) cautious approach of our health services in replicating the study on a large scale, and scrutinising every last little nuance of the study that is holding this up from becoming mainstream. If it proves to be as effective as bariatric surgery, which has been the recent NHS last resort of obese T2s it will not only save NHS a fortune, but will give obese people an alternative to a procedure that whilst reversing diabetes gives another lifelong condition, that of requiring medication for digestive enzymes for the rest of their lives. That in addition to the psychological effects of such drastic surgery.
 
Well that is indeed a most interesting video.

I had become aware that baryatric surgery caused a remission in type 2 diabetes, and that was way before any possible weight loss, as he said within a week. I had actually read a paper on it which postulated the hormone argument change because of the bypass. Coincidentally at the same time there was a series of programs on Ch4/5? which looked at the actual bypass surgery (in all it's glory!). One thing that one of the surgeons had his patients do was to drink just milk for some weeks (I forget how long) to bring down the size of the liver. This was so the keyhole surgery instruments had room in which to move. I decided against the surgery as it is pretty major stuff.

Clearly reducing the "fat content" of the liver and pancreas is a very good thing. (I wonder if this is why my ALT levels are so high (90) and why I need to have a scan.)

So the issue is then what is the best way of bringing down the fat content of these organs (I wonder if the physical pressure they are under due to all the fat that surrounds them also has a bearing - I am fat).

And that is the point at which I need to think some more about the Newcastle Diet and whether this is the best way for me? Uhmmmm. Watch this space. It doesn't look very nice, apart from the milk

ps I can see where you guys are coming from now.
 
Overall, I thought the program was pretty good at raising awareness of the modern convenience foods and the rise in obesity and it's relationship to the increase in diabetes. Whilst I understand for many T2 diabetics it may be genetic, for many more it is directly related to a poor lifestyle.
The facts are-
a poor "convenience" food diet leading to an increase in weight along with a sedentary lifestyle = increased chance of diabetes.
I think that's the point the program was making, if you play dodge long enough - one day you probably will get hit !

For me that was true, my weight had increased from 12 stone to a 21 stone peak over a period of 15 years or so. My dad had had diabetes so I knew I was at risk, but didn't heed the warnings. Now in my mid 50's, I was diagnosed about 7 months ago. In truth,the diagnosis was probably the best thing that could have happened, the wake up call I needed. Like many it seems, I had been living in denial that my lifestyle was so bad.

I have now lost 4 1/2 stone ( initially due to Ketosis - not good), I've joined a gym and now make an effort to be much more active. My HgA1c came down from 100 to 53 in a little over 3 months and my energy levels have improved.

The Newcastle diet gives me some hope, I want to limit the long term damage if I can. I am tempted to try it, but worry I won't have the will power to see it through. There was also the Channel 4 program which compared the effects of a 1500 calorie a day diet to the 600 calorie Newcastle diet. The 1500 calorie diet also showed some promising results. The diet was mostly low carb, veg, salad and a measured amount of protein. I think this would be easier than living mostly on diet shakes.

So in conclusion, I think the program highlighted the main issues as far as the general population are concerned.
 
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All I can add is that although I am still fat, my diabetes BG levels have not returned. So a tough and disciplined 8 weeks, on Newcastle diet regime was the best decision I could have made.
 
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