Hello All

[black57]

I am on the Atkins WOE and I am, of course, running into nay sayers. I don't care, I have studied this diet for years and I know that they do not know what they are talking about. But, someone had mentioned that they did a low-carb diet and almost went into a diabetic coma and died. Now, I feel that that is stupid. If you are a diabetic, you should know when something ain't right long before you go into a coma and die. I am hypoglycemic and when I don't feel right I take care of the problem period. I also feel that this person did not tell the doctor that she was doing it and just did it and taking the same amount of insulin.

I do believe that this diet could, not only prevent diabetes ( my personal goal ), but also cure it. Any medical comments on tis would be sincerely appreciated. :(

Black57

[Lisa N]

Hi Black!

It's certainly possible to find yourself having a hypoglycemic reaction when you stay at your current level of medication and cut the carbs way low. That's how I always knew it was time to first decrease my medication and then stop it altogether; my blood sugars would start dropping lower than what I'm comfortable with. This is why it's very important to tell your doctor what you are doing and follow low carb under medical supervision if you are taking diabetic medications; your dosage will almost certainly need to be decreased if not discontinued altogether. It's extremely foolish to not being doing this under medical supervision if you are taking insulin or other medications for diabetes and could wind you up in a whole lot of trouble as your friend discovered. Too bad they blamed the eating plan instead of their own foolishness. If you're not taking medication, low carbing shouldn't give you hypos; it should actually stabilize your blood sugars so that you experience neither highs or lows.

If you are a diabetic, you should know when something ain't right long before you go into a coma and die.

Usually, but not always. Blood sugars can drop precipitously especially if you have taken too much medication or haven't eaten enough carbs for the medication to work on and a hypo can overtake you very quickly. This is why diabetics who take medication should always carry glucose gel or tablets with them so that they can get some fast acting carbs into them quickly when they feel a hypo coming on. Sometimes blood sugar can already be dangerously low before the person experiences warning symptoms or they ignore the early symptoms until it's too late.

I do believe that this diet could, not only prevent diabetes ( my personal goal ), but also cure it.

If you start low carbing before you develop insulin resistance or diabetes, yes, there's a very good chance that you can avoid developing it or at the very minimum delay its onset for a very long time. Certainly longer than if you had continued to eat a high carb diet.
Unfortunately, there is currently no cure for diabetes once you've developed it. By that point, you have already started to burn out your insulin-producing beta cells in your pancreas and it's currently believed that once these cells burn out, they never regenerate. So...currently there is no cure, only varying degress of control. Low carb will give you the best control possible and you can even live a long life with non-diabetic blood sugar readings, but that does not mean you are "cured". It just means that you are a diabetic who has learned how to control their disease very well. I've known at least a couple of people who got their blood sugars under control and believed that they were cured. They quickly found out otherwise when they relaxed their dietary control (read went back to their old eating habits) and their blood sugars quickly went screeming upwards again. :(
Not that I think it would help, but I'd encourage the person that you were talking to to give low carbing another try, but this time to let her doctor in on it and do it with the proper supervision so that another experience like they had doesn't repeat itself.

[black57]

Thanks for your consideration and time.

Black57 :wave: I will refer her to this site