The Diabetes epidemic

noblehead said:

Good explanation Andrew, it's not difficult to understand why the Newcastle diet works.

No doubt that the Dietitians working on the ND will advise patients on a follow-up diet.

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OK, what you are both missing here is that the Newcastle diet is simply a meal replacement plan, plus a plate of healthy vegetables a day. These plans have been around for years. They are not new. People (particularly women) have been following them for years. Giving a diet fancy new name because there has now been a study will not make it more effective long term. It's still the same diet! I did the Slimfast plan a few times (between 10 and 25 years ago) and yes it worked for a while. It was also one of the mistakes I made that got me where I am today. As I said earlier, if the Newcastle diet is a person's first attempt at losing weight of course it will work, but so will any other low calorie diet...the cabbage soup diet for instance. To me the diet industry itself is a major cause of obesity, they fill us with manufactured products which are not good for us. They encourage us to try to be thinner than is natural for us. If there was no diet industry we would need less diets.

I don't doubt the Newcastle plan works for a while, but health is a long term issue, not a quick fix. The more quick fixes a person tries, the worse their health will be long term. Isn't the long term what we should be focussing on when we have a condition that is with us for life?

i know nothing about the newcastle diet really apart from not fancying doing it, what worries me is the fact they hail it as a cure, they stated it on this tv "show" like it was, thats like saying i used to have vertigo but I'm cured, all i have to do is stay away from high places, or i cured my peanut allergy, if i don't eat nuts, would the newcastle diet "cure" people that are not overweight and fit as a fiddle but have t2 db because of genetics reasons alone and not due to poor lifestyle choices? (that is a question) and if you did the newcastle diet got "cured" then went on the eat a bag of sugar a day, you i assume would be uncured

Andrew Colvin said:

It is nothing to do with carbs or fats it is to do with reduced calories so your body has to use it glycogen and fat stores from the liver and pancreas

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I agree the diet encourages the body to use stored fat but some of us would say reducing fat intake does not initiate Ketosis but reducing carbs does as I believe the body always uses carbs first rather than stored fat unless 'trained' otherwise. I suspect reducing just the carbs by the same amount as the carb reduction in the 800 calorie diet would have the same weight-reduction effect. I wonder if Newcastle have tried this?

zand said:

OK, what you are both missing here is that the Newcastle diet is simply a meal replacement plan, plus a plate of healthy vegetables a day. These plans have been around for years. They are not new. People (particularly women) have been following them for years. Giving a diet fancy new name because there has now been a study will not make it more effective long term. It's still the same diet! I did the Slimfast plan a few times (between 10 and 25 years ago) and yes it worked for a while. It was also one of the mistakes I made that got me where I am today. As I said earlier, if the Newcastle diet is a person's first attempt at losing weight of course it will work, but so will any other low calorie diet...the cabbage soup diet for instance. To me the diet industry itself is a major cause of obesity, they fill us with manufactured products which are not good for us. They encourage us to try to be thinner than is natural for us. If there was no diet industry we would need less diets.

I don't doubt the Newcastle plan works for a while, but health is a long term issue, not a quick fix. The more quick fixes a person tries, the worse their health will be long term. Isn't the long term what we should be focussing on when we have a condition that is with us for life?

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Absolutely agree. This isn't a sprint its a life long marathon.

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I once lost a shed load of weight as a student living on 2lb apples, three pints of green tea and a small chicken curry every day. It came off in weeks and went back on in days as soon as I started trying to eat " normally " again. I agree with @zand that it may work if you've never dieted before, but after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting my body is fighting me every ounce of the way down. I think it's also a bit of cheek to brand it as a unique diet, as such restrictive plans have been the norm for women in particular for years. I can remember my mother drinking vile milkshakes when I was a kid- she only lost weight and kept it off when she started to follow a sensible eating plan which inadvertently reduced her carb intake as she preferred other foods for her calorie bucks.
I must admit that I do feel guilty about becoming a T2 diabetic- I don't need a TV programme or nasty newspaper to beat me up about it as I already feel ashamed about it all. My GP was lovely but I can't help but feel that he thinks " there's another fatty that got what she deserves"- despite several family members being T2 and my weight gain possibly being a result of not confirmed PCOS( I have/had a lot of the other symptoms and it was suspected by my gynae years ago) on top of years of eating to mask my unhappiness and anxiety. I know I ought not to feel like this as many diseases are in our own hands and no one ( yet) looks at someone with bowel cancer with such moral outrage and finger pointing even though an unhealthy diet apparently plays a huge part in its development. In many ways, fat people have become as much a target for society's ills as immigrants and people of different faiths.

Ethyl - I relate totally BUT!!!!!

Since reading up on the food industry, we are not solely to blame. We've been pushed to eat low fat - I didn't realise how much sugar is added to lose fat versions of food. The manufacturers have also changed their processes which ups the sugar ante and the US government subsidised corn production to farmers which resulted in loads of high fructose corn syrup being added to the food chain. In addition, even the way cattle and fish are fed was changed to corn which makes the meat more fatty and increases omega 3 which can cause inflammatory disease etc etc etc.

Yes we've over eaten - in my case I was an emotional eater and always had an unhealthy relationship with food passed on by my mother (sorry mum but it's true!), but if diabetes exists in your family, you're already 50% more likely to develop it - fatty or no fatty

So yes we are to blame for a proportion of it but look at all the other influencing factors. The media bandwagon does not help nor the drugs companies who want us to be on meds.

The bigger picture is pretty grim.

We can beat it though if we remain consistent and do whatever we can to stay low xxxxx


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Diagnosed prediabetic Easter 2014. Just left to get on with it, no guidance or help from GP. Every day I'm learning something new.

There are one or two points which should be made concerning the programme's accuracy.

First, Maitland in his voice over before showing the clip of the amputee, Joseph Shurrock from Blackburn, said he had had his right leg amputated below the knee and was fighting to save the other leg. The film, to my mind anyway, showed that it was the left leg which had been amputated and the right one was more or less intact.

Second, Alan Tutty who had been on the Newcastle Diet, said that his BMI was 32 or 33 and after the diet it was a more normal 25. Maitland asked how much weight had he lost, to which the reply was 2 and a half stones. This seemed a small loss of weight for such a dramatic lowering of BMI. It could be achieved only if Mr Tutty was of diminutive stature 5 feet or under, but to my mind he seemed to be of about average height.

Anyone else agree with the above?

Syd said:

There are one or two points which should be made concerning the programme's accuracy.

First, Maitland in his voice over before showing the clip of the amputee, Joseph Shurrock from Blackburn, said he had had his right leg amputated below the knee and was fighting to save the other leg. The film, to my mind anyway, showed that it was the left leg which had been amputated and the right one was more or less intact.

Second, Alan Tutty who had been on the Newcastle Diet, said that his BMI was 32 or 33 and after the diet it was a more normal 25. Maitland asked how much weight had he lost, to which the reply was 2 and a half stones. This seemed a small loss of weight for such a dramatic lowering of BMI. It could be achieved only if Mr Tutty was of diminutive stature 5 feet or under, but to my mind he seemed to be of about average height.

Anyone else agree with the above?

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I have lost 2 stones 3lbs. My BMI has dropped from 31 to 25.75. I am 5ft 4ins. So, yes it is possible.

Daibell said:

I agree the diet encourages the body to use stored fat but some of us would say reducing fat intake does not initiate Ketosis but reducing carbs does as I believe the body always uses carbs first rather than stored fat unless 'trained' otherwise. I suspect reducing just the carbs by the same amount as the carb reduction in the 800 calorie diet would have the same weight-reduction effect. I wonder if Newcastle have tried this?

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If you read my thread http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/got-my-first-3-month-hba1c-results-this-morning.55719/ you will see that I didnt follow the newcastle diet per se, but I did rapidly lose weight by reducing my calorie intake. At the time I didn't know anything about the research or lchf diets or even this site - it started as a bit of a panic reaction and developed from there. I shook the fat from my middle within a month and now the rest is going at a slower rate as I increase my food intake (including carbs).

So yes @Daibell I think I can say your preposition is correct it will work.

I think you will find that if you read the Profs research he doesnt say you have to use meal replacements just that he used them to ensure his subjects got all the nutrients they needed. He focussed on rapid weight loss because he was trying to mimic what was seen with bariatric patients.

I think a lot more experimentation is required to understand the long term results, whether slow loss of weight works just as well.

Debmcgee said:

Ethyl - I relate totally BUT!!!!!

Since reading up on the food industry, we are not solely to blame. We've been pushed to eat low fat - I didn't realise how much sugar is added to lose fat versions of food. The manufacturers have also changed their processes which ups the sugar ante and the US government subsidised corn production to farmers which resulted in loads of high fructose corn syrup being added to the food chain. In addition, even the way cattle and fish are fed was changed to corn which makes the meat more fatty and increases omega 3 which can cause inflammatory disease etc etc etc.

Yes we've over eaten - in my case I was an emotional eater and always had an unhealthy relationship with food passed on by my mother (sorry mum but it's true!), but if diabetes exists in your family, you're already 50% more likely to develop it - fatty or no fatty

So yes we are to blame for a proportion of it but look at all the other influencing factors. The media bandwagon does not help nor the drugs companies who want us to be on meds.

The bigger picture is pretty grim.

We can beat it though if we remain consistent and do whatever we can to stay low xxxxx


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

Diagnosed prediabetic Easter 2014. Just left to get on with it, no guidance or help from GP. Every day I'm learning something new.

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I agree about the food industry having read several books on it over years. And I blame the widespread misadvice about good carbs.. I used to eat a slice of granary toast instead of a lump of cheese and piled my plate with brown rice so that my meat portion was smaller. All that happened was I got a " carb belly" and T2. I suppose I'm just angry with myself because I knew that heart disease and diabetes were in family but I just kept eating . With hindsight I should have just taken the bloody Prozac that they doled out like candy. Or demanded more emotional support. Off topic I know, but my GP has me booked in for all sorts of tests and routine follow ups now I am T2 but there's no clinic there for seeing people with mental health issues on a regular basis to check their well-being - obviously not a tick box preventative medicine funding winner that.

zand said:

OK, what you are both missing here is that the Newcastle diet is simply a meal replacement plan, plus a plate of healthy vegetables a day. These plans have been around for years. They are not new. People (particularly women) have been following them for years. Giving a diet fancy new name because there has now been a study will not make it more effective long term. It's still the same diet! I did the Slimfast plan a few times (between 10 and 25 years ago) and yes it worked for a while. It was also one of the mistakes I made that got me where I am today. As I said earlier, if the Newcastle diet is a person's first attempt at losing weight of course it will work, but so will any other low calorie diet...the cabbage soup diet for instance. To me the diet industry itself is a major cause of obesity, they fill us with manufactured products which are not good for us. They encourage us to try to be thinner than is natural for us. If there was no diet industry we would need less diets.

I don't doubt the Newcastle plan works for a while, but health is a long term issue, not a quick fix. The more quick fixes a person tries, the worse their health will be long term. Isn't the long term what we should be focussing on when we have a condition that is with us for life?

Click to expand...

The ND isn't just about losing weight, it's a calorie restrictive diet to remove visceral fat from around the pancreas and liver, by removing or reducing that fat it allows normal glucose levels to return, I'm sure any other calorie-restricted diet would would work equally as well, however the ND is done under medical supervision and those taking part in the trials were given MRI scans before, during and after the 8 week period to check on organ fat. Not sure what the follow-up diet is like post ND but I'd imagine they'll be advise given, perhaps a Google search might find the answer?

I don't agree that the diet industry is the cause of obesity, no one forces people to eat and weight gain is caused by over-consumption, in other words if you take in more calories than you burn then you'll gain weight, but that said said there are medical reasons too why people gain weight so it's not all what it seems.

My youngest has been on metformin since 2 or 3 years old with some weird hyperinsulism and thyroid issues, so since that age she has eaten the diet of an angle, when other kids in there shopping trolleys where eating wotsits she was eating carrot sticks etc etc and has eaten really well her whole life and seen a zillion endos, dieticians doctors etc, my wife has recorded everything she has eaten pretty much her whole, she may have eaten better than any other child on the planet for all i know, she is now 11 and very overweight, so i know for a fact being fat does not mean you have over indulged, sure it can do, but defiantly not always the case, this also proves to me that there are reasons i don't understand why some people put weight on and others don't

That's interesting Andy about your daughter. My youngest is chunky and I wonder about her sometimes. How did your daughter get diagnosed?


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Diagnosed prediabetic Easter 2014. Just left to get on with it, no guidance or help from GP. Every day I'm learning something new.

I haven't revisited the programme to prove my point, so it may be a false memory, but I do believe the programme suggests the Newcastle Diet can cure (although cure isn't a word I subscribe to for T2), not that it will cure it.

I completely agree that anyone doing a drastic diet, like the ND, or any other for that matter, will likely encounter rebound issues if they revert to pre-diet eating patterns, but I hope anyone trying the ND, or it's ilk, will do additional, associated reading to understand this. Additionally, one hopes anyone coming through the ND would have additional motivation from their improved blood scores and so on.

For me, albeit I didn't have the same quantum of weight to shift at diagnosis, my primary objective was to get my blood scores into range, and the almost effortless weight loss happened along the way. At the outset, had I understood the ND, and had been in circumstances that made it a credible choice, I might have been tempted, on the basis that it would have been a window of time, to kick start me. I'm not sure what impact the brutal regime might have had on me, but I'm stubborn enough to be able to see it through.

I acknowledge I seem to have had an easy ride, thus far, in my T2 journey, and the thing I am reminded of every day when I read these boards is that one size doesn't fit all; whether that be in defining our conditions, approaches to treatments or eating plans. Over the months, my thoughts on what dietary advice should be offered at diagnosis has altered, and probably softened somewhat.

they did a test with lucozade, it may have been the ogtt because she was a really fat baby and she went into a coma, freaked everyone out, from then on we have spent half our lives up great ormand street and uch, she had more tests that a beagle, bless her lol, she's also been in some crazy generics testing programs for years, but she's a very happy healthy friendly confident kid and full of life

edit: it wasn't a coma, she just kind of shut down and went to sleep, it was like her batteries died

we have been told she will become type 1 but as yet fingers crossed not

So does she have some form of MODY then? I feel sorry for children that get diabetes. I remember a girl at school that was T1 and she had a rotten time back then. Often wonder how she is doing now.

im not sure what she has, she is taking thyroxine now so maybe that will help, we go out cycling every night and it seems to be helping her weight, she's as strong as an ox so hopefully when starts secondary school in september, if she gets bullied she will be able to punch the bullies in the face lol

I am sure she will find a wonderful group of friends that will stand by her for life.

I do wonder about mine. She's very active and loves most food. She would eat 24-7 if she could! Obviously I'm pretty strict but she doesn't slim down. Her sister is fine figure wise although has a higher bmi than most - but she's muscly and has meat on her which I think is perfect.




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Diagnosed prediabetic Easter 2014. Just left to get on with it, no guidance or help from GP. Every day I'm learning something new.

Debmcgee said:

I do wonder about mine. She's very active and loves most food. She would eat 24-7 if she could! Obviously I'm pretty strict but she doesn't slim down. Her sister is fine figure wise although has a higher bmi than most - but she's muscly and has meat on her which I think is perfect.




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Diagnosed prediabetic Easter 2014. Just left to get on with it, no guidance or help from GP. Every day I'm learning something new.

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A bit of an aside, but are your kids eating the same meals as you are now Deb?