Glycotrol

[TomX]

My mother, who is prone to the charms of snake oil salesman, is encouraging me to get on this http://www.biochemicals.com/productfiles/GlycoTrol.htm. It looks like it's probably a protein pill. I'm skeptical. And the website marketing turns me off. Still, I looked up Charles Jarowski and he does appear to be a legitimate Dr and researcher. Anyway, my FBS was 150 today and has been averaging about 110-138 during the day. LC has really gotten my numbers back into a semi-normal range so I don't know if I need another drug. Does anybody have experience with Glycotrol that they'd like to share?

[Lottadata]

Your instincts are right.

Such products are always crap. If it worked, every diabetes bbs would be full of people mentioning it. They aren't. And anyone can put together a graph!

You are doing the right thing cutting back on carbs. If that doesn't do the job, try metformin. If that doesn't work, try Byetta, and if that doesn't work, learn how to do a basal/bolus insulin regimen.

It's that simple, and Dr. Bernstein's book lays it out very clearly though I don't agree with him on Byetta which DOES lower blood sugar quite well for the small subset of people for whom it is effective. The reason Bernstein isn't seeing that effect with Byetta in his patients is that you HAVE to eat enough carbs to get your bg up to 120 mg/dl to get Byetta to work and he doesn't let them eat that much.

[NorthPeace]

Tom, I have no experience with this pill but I think your instincts are correct. The ingredients list on that web page shows three vitamins that you should be getting from food already. BTW make sure that you are. The other four ingredients are amino acids that you can get in food. Maybe there are some websites that can tell you which foods, but they are not so hard to get as the website suggests. They are not among the amino acids that some vegans have difficulty getting which are leucine, isoleucine and taurine.

[TomX]

Thanks guys. I was curious if there were diabetics out there taking it, but it looks like that's not the case. I'm going to stay away from it. It's funny though on some of these things. You never know if one of them actually might have something of value. I found an Atkins DVD in my video store the other day and rented it. I found it incredibly cheesy and very infomercial-like. Nevertheless, the information in it was obviously very good, but I would have never gotten onto LC if I had started with the DVD instead of the book.

[Lottadata]

Tom,

Well, despite his branding the diet, Atkins did NOT invent it, and there have been many other people working on refining it over the years whose work he appropriated into his later books.

His style was uniquely his own, and IMHO did a lot to set back the acceptance of the diet in people who aren't fond of snake oil selling.

The science in his DANDR book is so inaccurate and outdated that it would put off anyone who thought scientifically.

Fortunately, I came back to low carb dieting via Dr. Bernstein and then the Eades, who both take a more scientific approach. When I looked at Atkins book I was really sad that this is the book most people start with because it so oversimplifies the problems people will run into.

Atkins diabetes book is HORRIBLE. Full of the ADA line on everything but carbs and the ADA is as wrong about important things like blood sugar targets just the way they are about carbs.

[TomX]

Tom,

Well, despite his branding the diet, Atkins did NOT invent it, and there have been many other people working on refining it over the years whose work he appropriated into his later books.

His style was uniquely his own, and IMHO did a lot to set back the acceptance of the diet in people who aren't fond of snake oil selling.

The science in his DANDR book is so inaccurate and outdated that it would put off anyone who thought scientifically.

Fortunately, I came back to low carb dieting via Dr. Bernstein and then the Eades, who both take a more scientific approach. When I looked at Atkins book I was really sad that this is the book most people start with because it so oversimplifies the problems people will run into.

Atkins diabetes book is HORRIBLE. Full of the ADA line on everything but carbs and the ADA is as wrong about important things like blood sugar targets just the way they are about carbs.

Well, I really don't follow any specific LC book these days. I pretty much just eat LC. I check pretty regularly if I'm in ketosis and I am. I do want to read Protein Power though. It sounds like a really informative book. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Lottadata]

Protein power is the best of the books about low carb dieting. However, the emphasis on protein obscures the fact that once we have established the ketogenic state we don't need anywhere near as MUCH protein as we do during the first weeks.

Stalling from too much protein and getting the horrible diet breath that comes from eating too much protein are problems a lot of long term low carb dieters run into.

But I'm sure the authors were afraid back in the 1990s to title a book, "Fat Power." which would have been more appropriate and lead to a better diet.

It isn't a high protein diet, after all, it is a high fat diet that takes off the weight and makes us healthy.