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What is the expected blood sugar reading if a diabetic uses a severe Atkins diet?

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Well if it is the 'thrifty gene' then lots of us have it, particularly women, it's not rare at all. It means we can survive on very few calories, so dieting/exercising is useless.
 

Hi
I have been unable with a lot of searching to find the weight loss doctor who defined the "hunter" gene on Public Broadcasting U.S.. If you find him tell me. My glucose tolerance test in 1964 was 70,1/2 hr 135,1 hr 170, 2hr 180, extended 3 hr 100. The rise for over 2 hours was his definition of the "hunter" gene. About 1/2 hr later I probably had a very mild low blood sugar episode as I had very mild shaking (I didn't know they called it shaking) as I left the hospital. If I ate a lot of sugar/starch/alcohol I was subject to the usual suspects of low blood sugar so much later that I have no idea of what the time delay was (or exactly what I had ate). This ended as I realized from my glucose tolerance test (but not the consulting doctor, he was stuck in his diabetes rut) that I must be getting low blood sugar and with only a small modification of diet this ended. I did not realize that the debilitating fatigue was due to eating any significant sugar until about 7 years ago. Actually, I suspected that for years, but was talked out of going on my recent diet by the medical establishment (those creeps).
 
LittleGreyCat said:
Hmmm....if you don't produce insulin then you are a T1 Diabetic and insulin dependant. Or dead.

Perhaps a reference or two to scientific studies?
Click to expand...
I think the OP means not triggering an insulin response. So, using Atkins in ketosis mode to stop glucogenesis. The term <<strict>> would imply this.
 
Oldvatr said:
I think the OP means not triggering an insulin response. So, using Atkins in ketosis mode to stop glucogenesis. The term <<strict>> would imply this.
Click to expand...

Hence my longer post further up.

As far as I know the body is constantly manufacturing a small amount of glucose even on a (very difficult) fat only diet. Cutting out the carbs keeps this at a very low level though, especially once the body is in nutritional ketosis.
 
Oldvatr said:
I think the OP means not triggering an insulin response. So, using Atkins in ketosis mode to stop glucogenesis. The term <<strict>> would imply this.
Click to expand...
Hi

I haven't checked for ketosis but I note that I do not easily lose weight on an Atkins diet (not true for your people). I look at my glucose tolerance test and the fact that people with my type test do not lose weight on many of the standard weight loss diets. Glucose tolerance test taken 1964 70, 1/2 hr 135, 1 hr 170, 2 hr 180, extended 3hr 100, about 1/2 hr later had a very mild shaking episode (low sugar?). I suggest I do not make insulin until my blood sugar rises to an unknown value. Why would I need insulin with my restricted diet? My brain would use enough sugar for the amount I ingest. The diet doctor who found to his surprise, Public Broadcasting U.S. (can not find out his name, I assume not popular so no repeat) that there are people whose glucose tolerance test rises for the full 2 hours scheduled. He called such people as having a "hunter" gene and these people did not lose weight on his diet.
I should have an article about this in Scientific American. I have been studying this extensively. The medical establishment gets me fighting mad. They don't like anyone trying to figure out things for themselves (I am trying to have the 1 doctor who had the confidence and the humility to help me sited in my article). I comment about 1/2 the people in India (from numerous interviews) seem to have my gene and the women have sugar problems in pregnancy. I have speculated that the near east has had many famines due to the monsoon's failure. I guess that the plains American Indians, the people in the near east and the far pacific islanders probably have the gene. They lived as hunters. Many people with the gene (not all) get fat with the western diet and some get diabetes.
 
zand said:
Well if it is the 'thrifty gene' then lots of us have it, particularly women, it's not rare at all. It means we can survive on very few calories, so dieting/exercising is useless.
Click to expand...
zand said:
Well if it is the 'thrifty gene' then lots of us have it, particularly women, it's not rare at all. It means we can survive on very few calories, so dieting/exercising is useless.
Click to expand...

Hi

The diet doctor who called my glucose tolerance test the "hunter" gene implied this. I have lost weight. The secrete is cut the fat in your diet. I lost about 80 pounds in about 1 year on a crash diet years ago. I ate pasta with cottage cheese and some vegetables for vitamins (not recommended). It took many years for me to regain 60 pounds. I am now losing weight by cutting out most cheese and eating a normal (small in our society) amount of meat (fish you get the idea). Since there is very little sugar/starch in my diet. I am losing for the normal reason (except very recently, my wife says my father said he gained weight when the weather was humid, water?).
 

Hi

Thanks that explains why my blood sugar has risen very slowly with time since I went on my severe Atkins diet. I still think I am not making insulin.
 
zand said:
Well if it is the 'thrifty gene' then lots of us have it, particularly women, it's not rare at all. It means we can survive on very few calories, so dieting/exercising is useless.
Click to expand...
Hi

A glucose tolerance test(gtt) is fairly easy to take. The "hunter" gene is a "thrifty gene" in your sense. Ask your doctor. If your gtt shows your blood sugar rising for at least 2 hours congratulations, join the hunter club. If I do not eat enough sugar I also go into a save energy mode (as can most people). Still with a severe Atkins diet my sugar tooth is slowly lessoned and my diet of many protein snakes or low carb vegtables does not feel impossible. Yes, I force myself to exercise. I am lucky I have a home gym with a good recombant exercise bike (hard to be injured). I am old so I now do 3 sessions of 10 minutes each with as much simulated tension as feels at all feasable. I note I have a lot of stick to it (word?).
 


I think you have it!
I'm sure I said more or less the same thing!

I think the op reads into the 'hunter gene' theory too much.
I also believe that if he had random food allergy tests with a CGM, he would discover so much more, how his reaction to food and how his metabolism actually works.
Testing for how much insulin is produced and when he goes low into hypo.

If I was concerned and asking questions, that's what I would invest in!
 
Hi

You have explained possibly what went wrong when I had a probable autoimmune response in 1957 (except for thurst, think type 1 diabetes). I now get severe fatigue whenever I process sugar and if I eat too much sugar/starch/alchol I can get major low blood sugar many hours later. So much later that I have no idea that food was the problem. My blood sugar, the few times (2 or maybe 3) I took it, was 60 when I felt very tired. I still insist that with my "hunter" gene I have no problem if I eat very little sugar/starch since until my blood sugar rises I have very little or no insulin. In fact judging from the fact that a boy with type 1 diabetes has gone 2 years without insulin with no obvious ill effects no insulin is a possibility. My gene seems to be wonderful for hunters. I appaud the doctor who named it. I point out that I do not naturally lose weight with my diet. I have had spells were I have gained weight as well as times I have lost weight. I am working on losing weight at the present time by cutting out all cheese in my diet (protein with some fat portions are small for this society). I was successful until very recently. My wife says my father (similar to me in weight etc...almost surely the one with the gene) said that he gained weight in humid weather. Time will tell if this new weight (say 2 or more pounds) is simply water. I also suspect I have corrected my blood pressure problem. I am slowly cutting my meds which controlled my blood pressure (have some worry about rebound). I suspect excess insulin was the culpret.
 

Once again, if you take out the fact that you believe the 'hunter gene' description, you are actually saying you have (very) late reactive hypoglycaemia!

You say you get response of low blood sugar after processing sugar, starch, alcohol.
So do I!
The reason I don't hypo no more and get the reaction from the sugar, starch, alcohol is I don't eat it!
If those groups of foods are bad for you, why do you persistently eat them?
There is no real need to. Cutting cheese and good fats out of your diet is not necessary, don't eat the carbs, sugars, starch, alcohol!

As I've said before, if you go very low carb, then your fatigue will go away, my energy levels are unbelievable. I have never been healthier!.
Our sort of condition is not age related, it is all to do with what we eat!

Being in control and in ketosis is the only way, that really works.
And you will probably lose some weight as well!
 

Hi
I am 77 years old and think that explains a lot. I disagree with you since it is obvious that I do not necessarily lose weight with a sever Atkins diet. The weight loss doctor who defined the "hunter" gene said these people do not lose weight on my weight loss diet. I cut the cheese to lose weight, not for my health. I agree that we probably have a variance of the same problem. My best guess is that my autoimmune problem destroyed one type of cell in my adrenal glands. I assume my adrenal glands use chemistry (probably complicated) to stop the production of insulin until my blood sugar rises. When the cells were destroyed this chemistry was compromised. Another reason for my guess is that about 1/2 (or more) of the women in the near east have our gene. You should have seen the Indian who vigorously said (don't remember exact words) that we have prediabetes but don't get diabetes (prediabetes is defined as high blood sugar after 2 hours during a glucose tolerance test). He also said that during pregnancy his wife had terrible high blood sugar after eating one type of grain (not clear if bread or what) but no problem with a similar but different grain (note: many famines due to failure of monsoons if you don't lose weight easily you are more likely to survive famines). I have inquired and all the Indians I have encountered talk about the sugar problems of their women during pregnancy. I have a relative who can vouch for those problems she was told by a (stupid?) doctor that she was sure to get diabetes over 30 (or is it 40) years ago when they took a glucose tolerance test after pregnancy. She has our problem and can't keep a job (falls asleep) or do highway driving. Like another women I found with an ad in the New York Times they would rather have the fatigue than go on a strict diet. I also have found out that many people in the near east end up fat and get diabetes when they switch to the western diet. The same can be said of plains American Indians or Pacific Islanders (note: hunters).
 
As you ask, I would personally be disappointed with a 5.8 A1C despite a severe Atkins diet if I were non-diabetic.
 
I'm at a loss really. It seems that the OP's fixation on this hunter gene thing blinds him to all other possibilities.

Maybe this article by Jenny Ruhl about how gluocose tolerance is lost may help in some way. Certainly seems he is quite far down the path - little or no first phase response and increasingly poor second phase. Personally I'd be seeing an endocrinologist. Maybe there is beta cell damage from the autoimmune attack? Maybe it's time for insulin if an Atkins style diet is no longer working as well as it used to?

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046621.php
 
 
@yetta2mymom - diabetes has not been pinned down to one single gene. The latest science on epigenetics seems to indicate a much higher degree of complexity than simply one gene = one condition. Genes can be switched on or off by environmental factors, diet, etc. I recently had my DNA sequenced and the report came back with 20 different SNP's indicating risk of Type 2, but I still don't think it was inevitable that I would go on to get it. I also have really high risk factors for HLA-B27 syndromes (like psoriasis) but (touch wood) haven't developed signs of any of them yet. My mother on the other hand was a life-long severe psoriasis sufferer. Who knows why she got it but I haven't so far?
 
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With the greatest respect, it would be useful if the OP just posted additional information instead of the same stuff filling about 80% of the response.

Anyway, as suggested the "hunter" gene is probably not that at all, but the "thrifty" gene.

I could also point out that most of the tribes/races in the Northern Hemisphere are hunters - more so than those in warmer climates because of the lack of vegetables over the winter. In tropical and sub tropical climates food is likely to be available all the year round. Once you get far enough North for snow to cover the ground for 5 months of the year life becomes much harsher.

For an extreme case the Inuit traditionally survive on almost exclusively fish and meat because they live too far North to have access to vegetables. They also had (before modern society changed them) an enormous amount of fat in their diet.

For the "thrifty" gene, which many people have, the ability to store fat easily and maintain weight on a restricted diet doesn't automatically mean an increased risk of diabetes.

The crucial thing is where the fat is stored.

If the fat is stored mainly about the belly (as shown by a large waist measurement compared to height) then this visceral fat is known to increase the risk of developing T2 Diabetes.

However there are those who keep a trim waist but deposit the fat mainly around the thighs (often European tribes). Some African tribes tend to store fat in the buttocks. In both these cases there would logically be decreased risk. However genetic risk is highest in Asians, next highest in Black Africans, then come the rest of the world.

Also note that (these figures may be slightly out of date) 80% of T2s are over weight or obese on diagnosis but 80% of over weight or obese people don't develop T2.

The concept that the body evolved to survive famine and feast is a very enticing one, and at the moment I am much in favour of it. If the body evolves to spend part of the year storing fat and part of the year in ketosis re-using that fat then evolution may not have encountered long periods of continual plenty. Even then, continual plenty is unlikely to thin out the population before prime breeding age. Continual starvation is much more likely to have a selective effect. Prime breeding age is immediately after sexual maturity; say around 14 years old. Traditionally, T2 didn't develop until the late 50s so in evolutionary terms this would be long after breeding so adverse genes which express at this point are unlikely to be culled from the genome due to natural selection.

Anyway, enough rambling.

Final puzzle; when does Reactive Hypoglycemia become T2 Diabetes? Is there a cross over? If you have high BG for, say, 4 hours before you crash into a hypo then you seem to have two problems: firstly you spend most of the day with elevated BG but eventually you crash into hypo territory. I would thing the long term elevated BG would most likely classify you as T2 (as the most serious condition) with an added complication of RG.
 
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