Good BS

[kaarren]

HI This morning I had my lowest BS reading - 106! This is down from the 118-122 since starting Atkins 3 weeks ago. Before I started, it was running 120-130. I'm so happy! I've taken Metformin 750 since being diagnosed last November. I have another blood test next month and I'm looking forward to checking out my A1c. :)

[Charran]

Isn't it exciting what LC eating can do to help our BG? Good luck with your A1C!

[dancinbr]

LCing will bring your A1C down into the 5+ range very quickly.

Best wishes.

[RCo]

I've taken Metformin 750 since being diagnosed last November.

Congratulations.

Do you realise that you may need a lower dose of Metformin as a lower carb diet impacts on your BG's?

[kaarren]

I'm looking forward to reducing the dosage of the Metformin!
I hope I can get rid of it permanently...!

[dancinbr]

I'm looking forward to reducing the dosage of the Metformin!
I hope I can get rid of it permanently...!

If you can get off of Metformin then great, but otherwise it is one of the medicines with long history and little or no side effects long term.

Of course, the upset stomach side effect is bothersome to many, but Metformin XR settled that issue.

Ralph

[Cajunboy47]

As long as you're not having hypos, keep taking the metformin or at least take something to keep your BG lowered. It's great that you're getting it down..... We all would like to stop taking whatever it is we're taking, but the reality is, keep that BG down and take what's working and not causing complications....

[RCo]

I'm looking forward to reducing the dosage of the Metformin!
I hope I can get rid of it permanently...!

:cool: I have been hearing of people who said low carb dieting caused problems (hypos I assume?) when they were taking it...not realising they may have needed less of the stuff. As long as you are under proffessional guidance or know what you are trying to do, :agree: . I don't think the use of drugs or insulins indicates some sort of failure, but you have your reasons for wanting off the drug, I hope you get there. :)

[kaarren]

Hmmm, well it is good to have the medicine. I just keep thinking that I will somehow be "un-diagnosed"? But really it is good to have the peace of mind that the medicine is there because I need it. Let's face it: I ate myself into this condition. Just because I have had success for the short term doing LC does not mean I'm anywhere near cured.

I do have to admit that my mind set is really with it now!

[eddiemcm]

Karren
You may not have ate yourself into diabetes.
It is genetic for many people.
Good luck
Eddie

[Cajunboy47]

If it is possible to eat our way into diabetes, is it possible to eat our way out of it? hmmmmmmmmm!

[Lottadata]

If you think you ate yourself into diabetes please read this:

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php

Also, there is quite a lot of data suggesting that Metformin is one of the very few "good drugs." It really does seem to cut way down on heart attacks even in people with lousy blood sugar control. And the side effects are annoying stomach problems, not health-ruining like that of most other oral diabetes drugs.

I spent years avoiding drugs for blood sugar control, but came to realize that the few safe diabetes drugs (including some insulins) along with a carb-controlled diet are a much better solution for people looking to keep their beta cells (and the rest of them) alive.

[RCo]

If you think you ate yourself into diabetes please read this:

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php



Yes please, anyone who thinks that they ate their way to diabetes, please follow that link.

Are doctors saying this to Type 2's, or are they just getting the idea from...er...the sky?

Scientists do not know everything yet. They do not know how to cure diabetes. Now, imagine they did and it was easy. Take a course of pills, quick simple surgery, sorted. Would you all (those who believe it is their fault) be blaming yourselves then?

[Nancy LC]

I guess when I think of "eating ones way to diabetes" I think more of the issues of eating a high, refined carb diet and subsequently insulin resistance rather than obesity being the cause. Obesity, IMHO, is just another symptom.

Does that mean they're to blame? Well, mostly no. We're being told all the time that eating carbs is good, fat is bad so the food choices people make that get them to that point are because of ignorance and bad information. And if vitamin D3 turns out to be important in this then the advice to stay out of the sun plays a role too. But most people put so little effort into thinking about their diet or it's consequences. The information is out there now but you have to dig for it. I guess if you're fully under the sway of the "establishment" you're unlikely to search for other answers, or believe them if you do encounter them.

On the other hand, when presented with the information those people who STILL won't change or even take the time to learn more, I think they do have themselves to blame for their worsening condition.

On the other hand, if BPa is the culprit in causing a lot of these metabolic issues then at some level we're all to blame. Why are we letting companies experiment on us? We clearly need some regulations on how these compounds are tested before we have been ingesting them for decades, just like drugs have to be tested. But we're so anti-regulation in this country that we keep seem to prefer companies make large profits over ensuring the health and safety of ourselves and our kids.

[Lottadata]

Nancy,

A normal person can live on sugar water and not develop any blood sugar-related health problems.

My mom is 92, has a fasting bg of 83, has eaten a high carb diet all her life, still does, and she also still has normal blood pressure.

She has some other serious problems caused by chemotherapy for a cancer caused by a known cancerogen, but she survived the cancer.

Seeing her response to her diet made me realize the extent to which carbs hurt only those of us who have underlying genetic problems. (I got mine from my dad.)

There are some good studies showing that people with normal blood sugar metabolisms lose weight just as well on high carb as low carb diets. But people with blood sugar problems DO not.

This is why the diet studies are so confusing, because they may sort out people with diabetes but never give you information about prediabetes in the group being studied. If there are a lot of truly normal people, you'll get a very different result than if there are a lot of people with prediabetes.

[Nancy LC]

A normal person can live on sugar water and not develop any blood sugar-related health problems.
I'm not sure I believe that. At least not the "normal" part. Sure, you'll have a portion of the population who seem impervious to living on sugar-water but I think most of us will end up with some sort of metabolic problem eventually.

Does that mean that those of us that develop metabolic problems from living on hummingbird food are genetically defective? Or does it mean that those outliers who don't get the metabolic issues are the oddities? I tend to think the later is the case.

I brought this up in another post. Cats. Cats don't get diabetes in the wild. But you start feeding them a typical domestic cat diet, which is much higher carb, and they start getting diabetes at rather shockingly high rates. It takes a long time for most cats, just like it does for humans. Put them back on their normal carniverous diet without the carb and the diabetes diabetes usually or often (not sure which) goes away, or at least you don't need to inject insulin anymore.

Now, when you do something whacky like feed animals what they haven't evolved to eat, I just think it's weird to call their illnesses derived from that as some sort of genetic defect.

[Lottadata]

Nancy,

It isn't that people who develop diabetes are genetically inferior, but more that that have not adapted to a high carb diet the way a large number of people have.

Cats are obligate carnivores, and are not adapted to a non-hunting diet. Humans have lived on a omnivore diet for at least 10,000 years that we know, and possibly a lot longer, so we have bodies that have evolved differently.

People who could not survive well enough to reproduce and keep their kids alive while eating an agricultural diet over that 10,000 year period did not leave descendents.

Most humans who are not 3 generations away from a hunter gatherer lifestyle who have diabetes genes adapted to conditions of periodic starvation by developing genes that made them more efficient at storing fat. The trade off is insulin resistance and diabetes later in life (which doesn't matter too much to natural selection because you've already reproduced. That is why Type 2 is almost always a disease of middle age--except when caused by brand new environmental pollutants like Bisphenol-A our bodies have just met.)

It is worth noting, btw, that type 2 diabetes was very rare in the agricultural west until this century, not because people ate low carb--they pretty much lived on stored grains all winter long--but because food was much harder to come by especially when it wasn't the growing season and only the wealthy could afford to gain weight.

Lillian Russell the 19th century glamor girl weighed about 200 lbs. And if you'll notice, in Jane Eyre (and other 19th century novels) descriptions of people who are unattractive almost always include the word "thin."

[dancinbr]

Thank you all for this conversation.

It gets back to the basic conclusion that in order for us to control our Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, we should strive to keep our carbs low.

Adding exercises somehow helps the muscles to become more insulin sensitive and thus is another aid to controlling BS.

You can be a fit fatty and have good control and avoid the complications of diabetes. Do I have this right?

Or would you state this better/differently?

Prior to being diagnosed, I always had trouble losing weight. Throughout my life I have constantly dieted and "saw toothed" my way to higher weight.

Even now as I journal what I eat, if I go over 2000 calories I tend to gain weight. To lose weight I must stay at or below 1500 calories (net calories = consumed calories minus intentional exercise calories).

Low carbing definitely helps me maintain and lower my weight. It is also very difficult for me to do so on a long term basis for whatever reasons.

But today I generally keep my carbs below 100 grams a day and most often around 60 grams without much difficulty. I need to focus to get my carbs down to 30-60 range and really work hard to do the Bernstein regimen of 30 or less each day. But doing that does help me lose weight.

I am thankful that I have Metformin XR and both basil and bolus insulins today to help me in my journey.

Thanks

Ralph

[Nancy LC]

I'd say that the rate that young people today are developing diabetes and fatty liver disease is yet another indication that most people haven't evolved to eat a high carb diet. Just like cats haven't evolved to eat a high carb diet. Sure we're more omnivorous than cats are, but that doesn't mean that we can live on nectar.
People who could not survive well enough to reproduce and keep their kids alive while eating an agricultural diet over that 10,000 year period did not leave descendents. Again, 10,000 years isn't a long time in evolution. Especially when you consider that Type 2 diabetes doesn't kill quickly it usually takes decades and you're well past your reproductive years. Especially now that we have so many ways of extending your life once you have it. We probably never will evolve out of it.

Besides, the biggest increase in consuming grains and sugars is in the last 100 years. In the last 30 years that has increased dramatically, along with the consumption of fructose and very highly refined carbs. In the 19th century sugar consumption was about 12 lbs per year per person. That figure is well over 100 pounds per person today. Now I think that's sugar, not including HFCS and all the other ways people consume sugars.

Remember what they used to call Type 2 diabetes, adult onset diabetes? That's because it usually happened later in life, after your reproductive years. Now explain to me how that's going to affect evolution?

Granted it is happening earlier and earlier now but it is being treated with drugs so it is unlikely to affect birth rates from those afflicted.

It isn't that people who develop diabetes are genetically inferior, but more that that have not adapted to a high carb diet the way a large number of people have.


Most humans who are not 3 generations away from a hunter gatherer lifestyle who have diabetes genes adapted to conditions of periodic starvation by developing genes that made them more efficient at storing fat. The trade off is insulin resistance and diabetes later in life (which doesn't matter too much to natural selection because you've already reproduced. That is why Type 2 is almost always a disease of middle age--except when caused by brand new environmental pollutants like Bisphenol-A our bodies have just met.)
Ok, so you believe in the "thrifty gene" hypothesis and that it causes diabetes. Having obese hunter gatherers, with diabetes, fatty livers and so on, in times of plenty seems anti-evolutionary. Taubes spends quite a lot of time dealing with the subject in GCBC.

It is worth noting, btw, that type 2 diabetes was very rare in the agricultural west until this century, not because people ate low carb--they pretty much lived on stored grains all winter long--but because food was much harder to come by especially when it wasn't the growing season and only the wealthy could afford to gain weight.

People who could not survive well enough to reproduce and keep their kids alive while eating an agricultural diet over that 10,000 year period did not leave descendents.
The diets of farmers and pioneers, and native Americans, and other groups have always relied on game in the winter. Farmers would have had access to their own livestock as well. They also had chickens, eggs, root cellars. I think the only big difference between winter and summer diet is fruits and vegetables (that couldn't be canned). Meat didn't disappear in the winter, if anything it was probably a meat-heavy time of the year.

Another thing is farmers and settlers had much less sugar than we do. It was a pretty rare commodity. And finally, they worked really really hard, which I think gives you some leeway in carb eating.

Here's a link that'll give you some idea of what pioneers ate.
http://www.projects.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/pioneer/pioneer_home.htm

But from the section specifically on winter:
Fall & Winter

-venison
-pigeons
-wild geese, partridge, chicken and turkeys
-hares
-preserved meat from livestock ( salt pork, sausages, smoked ham)
-dried apples
-root vegetables (carrots, onions, potatoes - stored in root cellar)

It doesn't sound to me like they lived on grains.

Oh yes... one last thing. This isn't new so we can't lay the blame entirely on environment. If you read the section on Native Americans given horrible subsistence diets of essentially nothing but carbs in GCBC their bodies react pretty much like most people's with Type 2, they get fat and sick. And that was looong before plastics.

T2 is brought on by diet. I don't know how many times the phenomenon has to get replayed for some folks to see the pattern: Population with virtually no diabetes adopts western diet and suddenly huge swaths of the population are getting it.

[Lottadata]

Yes, fat people who keep their blood sugars within normal limits can and do have normal health.

And for that matter, 80% of the obese NEVER develop diabetes. A fact that is often obscured by press coverage. You need a genetic makeup to get diabetes unless, as I said before, you have been poisoned by environmental toxins.

It is my belief that children with Type 2 and fatty liver disease are suffering from poisons in our environment like plastics which are found in their bloodstreams at high concentrations.

Nancy,

I don't have to read a web site to learn what people used to eat in the U.S. two or three hundred years ago. I have a graduate degree in American History and have read a great deal of primary source data, some of it unpublished. Diaries, letters, etc. Beyond that I spent 3 years living on a farm where we mostly ate what we could grow using the old New England technologies.

People of all ethnic backgrounds ate a ton of cornmeal in the U.S. in the winter, and wheat. The corn grown by native Americans was hard corn, not sweet corn, dried and ground. They had some dried beans too, but not as much as the corn.

Not a lot of game, because when there is 3 foot of snow on the ground hunting is very tough and most of the animals available are squirrels. Not a lot of good eating on a squirrel. There are deer, but they are very thin in winter and not easy to hunt when there are a couple feet of snow on the ground as is the case for much of the New England winter. Hunting is a spring or fall thing here.

Mostly people at salt cod and very salty ham, for protein, and there is a natural limit on how much of that you can get down. But cornbread and mushes and wheat bread were the staple. Potatoes were stored and eaten. So were the starchy squashes.

An excellent book about this is "Our Own Snug Fireside" which goes into many primary sources for it's data.

I also have a degree in Anthropology from the U. of Chicago, unlike 99.5% of the people who make public statements about the diets of our ancestors based on surmises.

Obviously I do believe cutting the carbs is VERY important for people with blood sugar issues. I've been writing about this for years and promoting a low carb diet very publicly this whole time.

Where I draw the line, though, is the fanaticism that develops around the diet. When we claim it cures all human ailments and that everyone needs to eat that way, we turn people off, because there are plenty of people who have not found that to be true. And so we lose the important message: Low carb is VITAL to people with broken blood sugar control.

That appears to be 1/3 of the mature population. The other 2/3s are fine.

And re the children, again, that isn't what they are eating. You can't develop diabetes at age 2 through "poor dietary choices" if you have a normal body. You can if you are full of organic chemicals that have destroyed the normal systems the body uses to control weight and blood sugar. Tragically this has happened because our children are being raised in environments soaked in chemical. Diet alone will NOT correct their problems because diet did not cause them.

You cannot get a normal 2 year old to overeat, BTW, no matter what you feed him. This was established years ago with some very good research done by the child study folks. A child that young only overeats when major inbuilt systems are broken.

[Nancy LC]

And re the children, again, that isn't what they are eating. You can't develop diabetes at age 2 through "poor dietary choices" if you have a normal body. You can if you are full of organic chemicals that have destroyed the normal systems the body uses to control weight and blood sugar. Tragically this has happened because our children are being raised in environments soaked in chemical. Diet alone will NOT correct their problems because diet did not cause them.

Children are getting dosed with high glucose levels and insulin in the womb because of what their mother's are eating. They're being programmed as fetuses to have these issues. There are all kinds of epidemiological data about this piling up now.

Then after they're born they start on a high fructose diet with all the fruit juices, fruit roll-ups, soda pop (later on), cheerios when they are toddlers and so on.

T2 diabetes is caused by diet.

Of those 2/3rds of the people who don't yet have diabetes, is their metabolism actually normal? Do they have good blood sugar and insulin levels or are they just not quite bad enough off to be called diabetics?

You can call me a fanatic but what do we call the ADA that continues to deny that sugar and carbs play any role in diabetes, or even the treatment thereof?

Well, we've derailed this thread plenty. I guess if we want to continue the discussion we should probably do it in the War Zone. I'll kick it off in there.

[RCo]

I brought this up in another post. Cats. Cats don't get diabetes in the wild. But you start feeding them a typical domestic cat diet, which is much higher carb, and they start getting diabetes at rather shockingly high rates. It takes a long time for most cats, just like it does for humans. Put them back on their normal carniverous diet without the carb and the diabetes diabetes usually or often (not sure which) goes away, or at least you don't need to inject insulin anymore.


Cats that live in the wild do also get a lot more exercise, have more erratic gaps between meals (intermittent fasting?), have to deal with the cold weather...

Do we know cats do not get diabetes in the wild? Has someone caught some strays and checked? Wild cats don't visit doctors and say "My feet hurt and I can't stop urinating"...as far as I know.

Do we know if there is a life expectancy difference? Could domestic cats be living longer than wild ones do, and therefore getting diabetes because they survived longer?

I do think the wild cats I hang out with in Spain and France are healthier than many of the pet ones I know in the UK. They look a lot smaller, but more energetic and active. The fact they are eating a natural diet is bound to be part of it. I am wondering if there is any evidence about the issue.

[Nancy LC]

Cats that live in the wild do also get a lot more exercise, have more erratic gaps between meals (intermittent fasting?), have to deal with the cold weather...
If you want a response to this you can repost it over here:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?p=7580139#post7580139

I don't want to continue the hijacking.

[RCo]

You can be a fit fatty and have good control and avoid the complications of diabetes. Do I have this right?
Ralph

There are some fit and healthy "fattys" who do not have diabetes, and they are in no danger of diabetes related complications, because those are damage to the body from high blood glucose or high insulin levels. As Lottadata already pointed out, the great majority of overweight people do not develop diabetes.

For people who already are diabetic, good BG control is absolutely the best thing they can do to improve their chances of avoiding complications (IMHO, but I am a Bernstein fan). If an overweight diabetic has great BG control, the risk of complications is seriously dimminished. A normal weight or thin diabetic who has poor BG control is in serious danger of complications. I am a normal weight prediabetic, I have always been normal or underweight and I have complications from years of poor BG control.

If you are overweight and diabetic, it is harder to have the good BG management that is necessary to hold off complications. The biggest reason I can see for this is the improvement to insulin resistance, which comes with weight loss. This is particularly relevant for Type 2's. Some forms of diabetes are not associated with insulin resistance, and for people with those there can be other benefits from exercise, such as improving and maintaining circulation to help heal or prevent damage from high BG's.

I am not trying to improve on the way you put it in the first place...I really like the "fit fatty" wording :D , I am just throwing my current thoughts about it into the mix.

[Cajunboy47]

Using the words "fit fatty" is a little like condoning that it is ok not to lose weight, perhaps at a psychological level. I think too, it is limiting to apply that to one's self.

If a "fatty" is fit, would the "fatty" be more fit, without the fat?

If that is true, then the term "fit fatty" is not unlike an oxymoron........

[RobLL]

Maybe there is a scientist in the field who can respond, but here is what I heard about human genetics. If a particular trait has a 1% reproductive advantage, it will predominate in the population after 1000 years. The repeated assertions that 10,000 years is not enough time have not been backed by any scientific studies.

[RCo]

I don't know if you guys are interested, but Nancy has made a new thread here http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?p=7580234&posted=1#post7580234
about the genetics issues, not just cats, because she felt that the thread was hijacked.

I think the "fatty's" issue and other things about BG control and health are relevant here.

[RCo]

Using the words "fit fatty" is a little like condoning that it is ok not to lose weight, perhaps at a psychological level.

If a person is healthy, and happy, IMHO it is ok for them not to lose weight.

[Lottadata]

In fact, the answer about fat depends a lot on your age, too.

There is some very solid data from NHANES that shows people in the "overweight" category are the least likely to die--after age 60 and that in that group, ANY weight loss including from intentional dieting may correlate with increased mortality.

A recent study (blogged about here: http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-evidence-that-weight-loss-after-65.html ) found what might be the reason for this.

Dr. Barzilai who is conducting a major study of centenarians at Albert Einstein Med School (Dr. Bernstein's Alma Mater) says that 1/3 of his centenarians were OBESE in their 50s.

Clearly, then, obesity is not the death sentence that we are often told it is by people with various agendas.

I feel very strongly that people with diabetes will do much better if they keep as normal blood sugars as possible. But as we get older, weight loss may be extremely difficult, and focusing on weight loss rather than blood sugar control often leads to frustration that can build up to where it pushes people completely off of ANY diet.

[dancinbr]

Well I keep trying to lose weight or at least keep it from going up.

To that end I have succeeded in that I have stabilized around 270.

I walk and I dance. Can I do it better at a lower weight; very definitely.

When I was in the gym I was doing treadmill for an hour at 3.4 mph and 4 degree slope and maintaining a 80% of max heart rate.

I am able to lift more weight than most of the average folks I watch in the gym.

I leg pressed 250-300 pounds on the cyber machines; forgot the brand name there.

I curled 50 pounds, back presses of 130 to 150.

Now, I haven't been in the gym for about a year since my wife's illness, but I think I am heading back. I definitely can see my overall stamina has declined.

I do believe weight training and aerobics is beneficial.

So perhaps I will go back. But in the meantime I am out walking.

Great discussion.