Is it time to stop promoting carbohydrates to people with diabetes?

[Northerner]

The Diabetes Professional Conference earlier this month included a debate on whether it is time to stop promoting carbohydrates to people with diabetes.

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/News/Carbohydrates-and-diabetes-debate/

So, basically, the two sides agree that moderate carb intake calculated according to individual tolerances is the way to go - what a surprise! 🙄

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[HERE TINTIN]

Until I found this sight I had never eard such a thing !! Low carbs for diabetics what nonsense. I had spent nigh on 36 years thinking carbs were the thing that were the most important aspect of managing my diabetes, and by that I mean I had to eat a lot of carbs. Since being here I have radically redused my carb intake and have found my bs lower and I feel so much better, I love it. But it is still carb orientated at my diabetic clinic and I go to a very big university hospital. So when I return in another 4months aprox I will enquire as to whether this new found philosophy has been taken onboard up here in Scotland. What a posative breakthrough in the thinking of handling diabetes 🙂

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I was diagnosed in 1965, and it was always a case of you could only have a set amount of carbs per meal. It was always drummed into Mum who cared for me at that young age that to many carbs would increase my sugar levels.

Things really changed once the synthetic insulin's came out as it was marketed as Human thus the same as the pancreas produced, so to just inject and eat as much as you want 😱

 

[Flower]

The light bulb moment for me was when I realised that all carbohydrate ended up as glucose it just depended on how rapidly it got there. In the 1970s all I knew was I needed to eat 40g of carbohydrate for breakfast etc in a regimented carbohydrate diet. I didn't really know what the end result was and prior to home blood testing it was a guess.

Promoting moderate carb intake along with the knowledge that they will all impact on blood sugar to differing extents has got to be the way to go rather than prescribing a set amount in a diet.

 

[Andy HB]

In comparison to others, my carb intake could still be considered high. But in comparison to what I used to eat is is probably somewhere between 50% and 75% less than what it used to be.

Sorry I can't say how many grams it is now, I don't measure it any more. But when I did it was always over 150g per day.

Another difference is how I eat the carbs. They are now spread throughout the day rather than being intermittent and large! I used to often skip meals and then load up on one meal a day (usually in the evening). This also was probably a chinese takeaway and we all know how much white rice they include!

I still tend to include carbs with every meal (porage or wholegrain toast in the morning, maybe beans on one slice of toast for midday and then 2/3 small new potatoes, carrots and beans in the evening would be common).

Andy 🙂

 

[DeusXM]

A far smarter and even less controversial conclusion would have been that people with diabetes should eat whatever amount of carbohydrates they are comfortable with that gives great A1Cs and doesn't cause them to gain weight.

Instead, agree on a 'moderate' carbohydrate intake smacks of disguising the promotion of carbohydrates to people with diabetes as being the right approach. None of these debates ever seem to accept that carbs can be eliminated from a diet safely despite the fact there is no evidence that this is dangerous and there is no evidence the human body needs dietary carbs.

We are still light years away from having a rational discussion about carbohydrate intake, which is probably the single greatest sacred cow of 'official' diabetes management.

 

[AlisonM]

What I don't understand is why the change around form the sensible approach of the 60s to what we have now occurred at all? Was there a typo in someone's report maybe?

 

[happydog]

When I was diagnosed in Sept last year I was told that 65% of my food should be carbohydrate and that carbs should appear in every meal. I said that I thought that my body would convert them to sugar. The doctor replied that I had a very limited knowledge of science and that carbs are the "building blocks of life and that cutting them down would have serious consequences for my general health". He has not changed his views and so I don't tell him or the DN what I do. Wouldn't it be brilliant if the medical fraternity decided that diabetics should test and find out what suits their bodies and adjust their carb intake accordingly? Could it be that some are beginning to see the light? I hope so.

 

[Redkite]

I subscribe to the "everything in moderation" camp. Having ultra-low carbs seems intuitively wrong - you may be able to adapt and survive, but you won't have that ready source of glucose that the brain needs for sharp decision-making and the body needs for bursts of energetic activity. But high carb diets are not good either.

I suspect that it can never be official advice to eat low carb diets because ....... we cannot feed the world's human population without carbohydrate crops. If everyone suddenly cut out carbs there would be global famine 😱

 

[Lurch]

What no professional explains is why it was known and accepted a hundred years ago that carbohydrate tolerance is central to diabetes.

See images attached from a now well-known 1917 diabetes cookbook. This modest cookbook makes clear that doctors were expected to measure the individual tolerance and this 'tolerance' was known to be between 40g and 100g depending on individuals, i.e. to keep blood sugars down to safe levels at all times. In other words, Dr Atkins didn't invent the low carb diet! Insulin may have come after 1917, but insulin is not an excuse to ignore carb tolerance especially in all those T2s not taking insulin.

It is simply obscene that well-known science was replaced after the Ancel Keys hysteria over dietary fat. It is also not true that the human body needs carbs...any carbs . I have now spent six months on a ketogenic, i.e. very low carb diet, almost all from vegetables, and I think clearly and exercise fine because the human body is designed to burn fat in place of glucose (with only a very modest increase in 'maintenance' protein needed). This has been tested and the research published and never contradicted.

The diabetes 'epidemic' is directly correlated to the change in world dietary guidelines after the now discredited Ancel Keys 'dietary fat is bad' hysteria. Drugs are automatically issued instead of sensible dietary guidelines. Without self-testing, no diabetic has a hope of managing their own diabetes.

Many people probably do not realise that almost all modern medical research is funded/controlled by drug companies who also control what results get published.

Have a read of the 1917 cookbook here:

https://archive.org/details/diabeticcookeryr00oppeiala

 

[robert@fm]

Dr Atkins didn't invent the low carb diet!

As the saying goes, "there's nothing new under the sun". The "Atkins diet" was previously known as the "F-plan diet", and is believed to have been invented by a Dr. Banting (probably no relation to the insulin one) in the 1850s. (At least, that's the earliest currently known mention of it.)

But then, urban myths persist even in science; from what I've heard, schoolkids are still being taught that "red, yellow and blue" are "the" primary colours, despite this having been proven wrong on at least two counts by Dr. Edwin Land, several decades ago. Still, at least that misconception isn't a dangerous one...

 

[Abi]

I have noticed recently that a certain well known diabetes charity appears to be promoting lower carb ideas for food under the guise of reducing calories - for example a few months ago advice was given to avoid the map with a burger and have it between portabello mushrooms instead, in order to reduce calorie intake.
A recent episode for brownies using granulated sweetener, and beetroot instead of flour. The latter worked out at 18 g per slice so certainly not low in carb but much lower than a brownie made to a standard recipe I expect
Probably too scared of being sued for giving potentially harmful advice to admit that lower carbohydrate intake is often beneficial

 

[robert@fm]

From what I've heard, beetroot (or some varieties anyway) is one source of sugar.

 

[DeusXM]

I have noticed recently that a certain well known diabetes charity appears to be promoting lower carb ideas for food under the guise of reducing calories - for example a few months ago advice was given to avoid the map with a burger and have it between portabello mushrooms instead, in order to reduce calorie intake.
A recent episode for brownies using granulated sweetener, and beetroot instead of flour. The latter worked out at 18 g per slice so certainly not low in carb but much lower than a brownie made to a standard recipe I expect
Probably too scared of being sued for giving potentially harmful advice to admit that lower carbohydrate intake is often beneficial

I know which one you meant - the main recipe involved a massive bun and made a big song and dance about reducing fat (although as any good cook will tell you, you can't make a decent burger with low-fat mince). The mushroom bun was just an afterthought with no real explanation of why it was lower in calories.

 

[trophywench]

Oh help _ I have clearly been advised wrong (by Professor John Malins, one time President for The British Diabetic Association and instrumental in producing LIVE babies from T1 mothers for the first time EVER in the 1950's at the Birmingham Maternity Hospital - still part of the QE today!) because he devised a routine where I could eat the same amount of carbs - c.120g a day - as I ate pre diagnosis. Clearly that woman hadn't told him he was doing it wrong. I have a feeling I know what he would have told her .....

In the interim I have reduced that to anything from 70g upwards but it rarely goes higher than 100g. But I have always been able to 'operate' and have never seen any of these ill-effects she imagines.

Isn't it peculiar I have no complications yet !