Enterex Diabetic with fiber

[aileen]

Has anyone tried this? It is a flavored drink, like, dare I say Slim Fast. For people requiring a controlled glucose intake, no sugar, fructose, saccharin or aspartame. It does contain maltodextrin, 26.7 g carbs, 3.4 g fiber and sugar <1g. It sounds OK. I sent for a free sample. I have e-mailed the company, but no response yet.

[Sherrielee]

Too many carbs for me...that is almost a whole day of carbs for me... Good Luck, though!! :)

[Ruthxxx]

Dr. B would not approve. It's way too many carbs for me too and would screw up my BGL bigtime if taken at one meal. I try to stick to real foods although shakes are handy.

[mom4]

If it is made for diabetics I would assume it is LC.

[a.j]

Anytime I see the phrase "made for diabetics" I become immediately suspicious. A local chocolatier makes so called diabetic chocolates. Sure they have no sugar BUT they still have a carb count of 24 each.

I found out the hard way when my sugar levels went screaming up after eating 4 pieces. Not fun!!

Always read the carbs info and if there isn't any and the shopkeepers can't answer the carb count question... DON'T eat it.

Cheers, AJ

[c6h6o3]

No matter what the ingredients list, no matter what the marketing hype claiming 'sugar free', if it has too many grams of non-fiber carbohydrates in it, it will raise you blood sugar. Thank God that they have to tell you what the carb content is. Even after subtracting the fiber you're left with over 23 grams of carbohydrate. Don't eat it.

The only foods high in listed carbohydrate grams which really will not raise my blood sugar are the Atkins Advantage bars, but only if I don't eat more than one per day. If I need fiber, I eat more asparagus and broccoli.

[doreen T]

Maltodextrin isn't a sugar, it's a glucose polymer ... usually made from highly refined corn starch. It's the white filler that's used for most artificial sweetener powders, and is the source of any carbohydrate that's in those products. Maltodextrin is very high glycemic, higher than table sugar even ... it can cause a rapid rise in blood sugar and insulin response. It's not a sugar alcohol like maltitol, so you can't "subtract" it or not count the carbs in it. Perhaps the fiber that's added to the Enterex product is intended to slow the absorption a little?


Most other canned drinks of this type (Ensure, Boost etc) tend to have 50g carbs or more per can, so 27g carbs would seem to be a lot lower.


There are canned low-carb protein shakes available, such as Atkins brand or EAS. And others too .. check around. These will not contain such high-glycemic carbs as this, and will probably provide you with more protein too.

my 2¢

Doreen

[aileen]

Now I have 4 free samples. I will give them to my skinny 19 yo son. Why would this be labeled as a product for diabetics ?
Thanks for the replies.

[Lisa N]

Why would this be labeled as a product for diabetics ?

Because they can legally claim it to be "diabetic safe" or "sugar-free" if it does not contain refined sugar. The carb count would also be within the guidelines for a meal (or meal replacement drink) under the ADA diet, but still way too high for me. Keep in mind that the ADA has come out with a position that sugar is okay for diabetics as long as they cover it with medication. :thdown: Something with that much carb in it and a glycemic index that high would likely raise my blood sugar by nearly 100 points. Spikes like that I don't need.
Sadly, even with diabetic products, the motto has to be "let the buyer beware". :(
It pays (and our case is an absolute necessity) to know what is in what you are buying and what it can potentially do to your blood sugar. Always read labels and if you are in doubt, research the ingredients before you buy or eat any product that you are not sure of. Your health depends on it.

[c6h6o3]

Originally posted by Lisa N
The carb count would also be within the guidelines for a meal (or meal replacement drink) under the ADA diet, but still way too high for me.

The first sentence of Dr. Bernstein's book:

"There are a number of myths surrounding diet and diabetes, and much of what is still considered sensible nutritional advice for diabetics can over the long run be fatal. I know, because it almost killed me."

[Lisa N]

Originally posted by c6h6o3
The first sentence of Dr. Bernstein's book:

"There are a number of myths surrounding diet and diabetes, and much of what is still considered sensible nutritional advice for diabetics can over the long run be fatal. I know, because it almost killed me."

And I couldn't agree more. I never said I agreed with the ADA recommendations, just that the drink in question would fit within their guidelines. I understand that the recommendations of the ADA are more geared towards patients who are in denial of their disease with the hopes that they can at least get them to reduce their carb intake somewhat, but those guidelines have become mainstream treatment that never gets adjusted even when the diabetic patient continues to get worse following those guidelines. Instead of advising a lower carb intake, medication is added or increased. I guess most doctors feel that they will have better compliance with a patient taking medication than they will asking them to give up bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, sugar and most fruits; in other words, getting them to stop eating the foods that are slowly killing them. Even as I read that, it looks awfully restrictive in print until you start considering what's left to eat as well as considering what the alternative consequences would be if you were to continue eating those high carb foods even with medication.
Personally, I like being able to see, I like having functioning kidneys and I like having all my limbs intact. No high carb food is good enough for me to continue eating it with the prospects of going blind, having to go on dialysis or losing a limb or even dying if I refuse to give it up. When it comes down to it, no food is good enough to risk cutting my life short to have.
Okay...let me get off my soap box before people start pelting me with doughnuts, bagles and macaroni. ;)

[c6h6o3]

Rant=ON

A lot of it is political. A lot of it is inertia. Some doctors have made their livings treating diabetes, its complications and other related conditions and don't want to change. On the part of the big organizations, I think a lot of it might be that they don't want to admit to having been wrong. A lot of it is ignorance. My doctor recently asked me if I was watching my fat intake. I nodded my head in the affirmative. Of course, what I mean by "watching" it and what she means are 180 degrees opposite. (Well, maybe only 90 degrees.) What I mean by "watching it" is that I make sure that 60% or so of calories I take in every day are fat (and at least half of that is saturated animal fat) and that I get sufficient Omega-3 fatty acids, not too much Omega-6 and no trans fats. What she means is "Am I getting no more than 30% of total calories as fat?" I think my doctor has changed her tune somewhat after reading Dr. Bernstein's book at my request, but still hasn't bought into the concept fully. My next lab workup should be very convincing and help further the cause. We need to educate these doctors. At least as far as diabetes is concerned, their schooling has interfered too much with their education.

Go to the bookstore health rack. Look in Diabetes for Dummies or any book from the Joslin center at Harvard or the NIDDK recommendations (on the NIH website) and you will not see ONE WORD about the only effective basic treatment for diabetes - a low carbohydrate diet. NOT ONE WORD! So much for the medical establishment. Their recommendations are TOXIC. LETHAL! DO NOT LISTEN!

Rant=OFF

[c6h6o3]

I wasn't trying to imply that you agree with the ADA. Your posts are the most knowledgeable on this site. I just wanted Aileen to see that if they can come close to killing Dr. B, we lesser mortals are in big trouble! We must not listen to them!

[Lisa N]

No offense taken. :)
Every time I see a new recommendation from the ADA, my DH gets to hear me rant for at least half an hour: "It's okay for diabetics to eat sugar as long as they 'cover' it with more medication???? What can they be thinking????" Arghhh!
What's even more puzzling and frustrating is talking to people who have done absolutely no reasearch and are just blindly following what their doctor or local clinic is telling them to do. I work with a woman who is probably 200 lbs overweight and recently was put on insulin for her diabetes. I gave her my book (when she asked me about how I lost weight and talked about how hard she was finding it to lose weight while on insulin). Told her how much low carbing has helped me and that it got me off my medications and helped me lose weight. Her response? "No, thanks, I'll go with what the "experts" have to say." I wanted to shake her and yell, "don't you know that what they are telling you to do is likely going to kill you??" I didn't because I knew that she wouldn't be willing to listen. It's still sad, though. You have the knowledge to help them live a longer healthier life, perhaps even medication-free, and they just walk away from it.

[c6h6o3]

About two years ago my father-in-law suffered a massive stroke. After six months of rehabilitation, he's confined to a wheel chair most of the time and is functionally blind from macular degeneration. About a year ago, my wife, my mother-in-law and "PopPop" as my daughters call him were sitting around their dining room table talking about low carbing and my diabetes when my mother in law suggested that I measure their blood sugar. This was late in the morning, so my father-in-law had not eaten yet but she had. Her postprandial reading was 113. His fasting reading was 135.

The macular degeneration had been plaguing him for years, in addition to cataracts. I therefore suspect that there was probably a great deal of diabetic retinopathy present. At no time in the last twenty years was any mention made by any physician of what was probably chronically high blood sugar. My doctor would have immediately ordered a glucose tolerance test for any patient showing a fasting reading that high (or a postprandial one, for that matter). During all the time he was in the hospital, the National Rehabilitation Center, and later a nursing home no doctor ever diagnosed his diabetes. Did they see it and just look the other way because he's so old (79)? Maybe. I wonder how different things would be for the poor man had his blood sugar been normalized when he was my age.

With all the technology, money and knowledge available to the medical establishment it is utterly disgraceful that so many people face slow, hideous death from a condition which is so treatable. All the more so when the treatment is simple, easy, painless and essentially free of charge (maybe this last one is the real problem).

Jim

[Sherrielee]

I wonder how many people are controlling their BG with LC diet and exercise alone and not reporting it to their doctors? If the doctors are not receptive to LC...perhaps patients just nod in agreement to diet plans....to avoid a heated discussion over the Perils of eating fat. Interesting!

On a different note, my Mother's best friend is Diabetic and totally controls her BG with drugs. She even keeps candy next to her bed...in case her BG goes to low while she is asleep. She actually looks forward to a low BG...as an excuse to have a "goody". (Incidentially, her doctor keeps upping her insulin....) I tried to talk to her about low carbing one time and she said that LC was very dangerous and she didn't want kidney stones.

So many misconceptions about Low Carbs diets.

[c6h6o3]

She probably heard those myths about kidney stones, dangers of high protein, etc. from professional physicians.

[Lisa N]

With all the technology, money and knowledge available to the medical establishment it is utterly disgraceful that so many people face slow, hideous death from a condition which is so treatable. All the more so when the treatment is simple, easy, painless and essentially free of charge (maybe this last one is the real problem).

As much as I hate to credit the medical profession in general with such malignant intentions/motivations, I'm afraid I have to say that I think that may be the case sometimes. I also have to say that my father was a practicing physician for over 50 years and took his Hippocratic oath very seriously (first, do no harm!), but if your practice is built around treating diabetics and their complications, it certainly wouldn't do your practice much good for all of your patients to be getting better (not cured...better control and less complications) just by eating the right level of carbs and it doesn't benefit the pharmaceutical companies when patients find that they can get off their medications simply by making dietary changes.
OTOH as I said before, patient compliance plays a huge role here as well. Doctors can advise and warn until they are blue in the face, but they cannot force their patients to follow the regimen that they are recommending. Doctors can make their best recommendations, but putting those recommendations into practice is the responsibility of the patient. Often, it's the patient who just wants that "magic pill" that will make it all better without any more effort on their part other than to put it in their mouth and swallow instead of [heaven forbid!] having to change something about their lifestyle instead and many honestly believe that as long as they have their pills that dietary changes aren't necessary. As a society, we put far too much faith in chemicals to cure whatever ails us and make our problems go away without any effort or changes on our part. I have to admit, if I didn't know that I'd be continuing to damage my body by taking medication and continuing to eat whatever I pleased, even if my blood sugars were controlled with the medication, it would be tempting and certainly a lot easier to just take the medication and not have to forgo foods that I had become addicted to. It really doesn't help with compliance when a doctor recommends a restricted carb intake and then organizations such as the ADA come out with official positions that diabetics can eat the same foods as everyone else with impunity as long as they are good little doobies and take their pills/insulin. :(

Wow...I'm going off on a rant a lot lately. Sorry 'bout that! :daze: