Hello to everyone. Please excuse a newbie queston which must have been covered a million times. I am a middle-aged type 2 diabetic (borderline I'm told) and so I'm concerned about the implications when I start the Atkins diet in a couple of weeks time (my holiday weeks).

I have sent for the book but it hasn't arrived yet, so I can't read what it says about ketosis. All I know is, my diabetic clinic would go mad if they thought I was deliberately inducing ketosis. What are the issues?

On the other hand, one reason I want to try low-carb is that I suspect the high-carb diet I've had for some years had caused or accelerated the diabetes. I could never get my doctor to see this. He, like the clinic, are sold out to the low-fat, high carb diets.

Before I knew anything about these issues, after I was diagnosed as diabetic, they gave me lots of menu booklets and advice pamphlets. Every one said eat more carbohydrates. Now, to my simple mind that sounded like a contradiction, since with the same breath they told me that carbohydrates were the very things that sparked off a high-sugar alert in my body. After all, sugar is a carbo - right??

I suspected the advice and took it carefully, and my diabetes is well under control, (without medication) but I'd like to bring down my sugar levels even more and lose some weight.

My husband is a real carbo addict and it's going to be hard getting him off the bread, potatoes and suchlike. But he's willing to give it a try. He is grossly overwieght and arthritic, so he really needs this.

Do you have any advice for me?
Tricia

Hey Tish, welcome to the most helpful place a low carber can ever find. I haven't been around here a long time, but I want you to know you'll always find help, advice and support when you log on. I've been a type two diabetic (or as I prefer, a person with diabetes) for a couple of years now. Tons of fun isn't it? Anyway, I think you've made the right decision. I'm not a doctor, but my doctor supports me in this choice I've made. Her father has diabetes and she's kept him low carb for years. Like you, I would never mention this to my diabetes clinic. They'd hit the roof but the eating plan they laid out for me was leading me toward sugars I couldn't control and metformin every day for the rest of my life. The "new" way of thinking about diabetes is going to lead a lot of people into the horror of complications. The old way made a lot more sense. Watch the carbs and don't eat sugar. That's what your doctor would have said twenty years ago. Anyway, sorry about the rant. I'll just tell you that following Atkins I'm losing weight for the first time in years. Also I'm not as ravenous all day and I don't have to take my diabetes meds anymore. As to the ketosis, when your book arrives you'll find that ketosis (the process of lipolysis which instigates the burning of fat for fuel in the body) is completely different from ketoacidosis (a condition which can affect type one diabetics and is very serious). Of course, if you have kidney damage you shouldn't low carb in the first place, but if you're healthy (mostly) benign ketosis won't harm you. Remember to drink, drink, drink, water to flush the ketones out of your system and watch the inches melt away. Good luck and welcome again. Talk to you later, Hope1

Hi Tish!

Hope is absolutely correct. The type of ketosis (benign dietary ketosis) that your body goes into with low carbing is completely different from that which occurs in uncontrolled diabetics (diabetic ketoacidosis). Even many health professionals confuse the two.
Benign dietary ketosis is completely harmless and is the result of your body burning body fat due to the lack of a glucose source (carbohydrates). ALL diets that result in fat metabolism produce ketones, which are really just the byproduct of the body burning fat, so I often wonder why everyone gets so excited about it. Granted, you do produce more ketones when you low carb, but your body needs them because they have then become your main source of fuel instead of glucose. Diabetic ketoacidosis results when you have no or very little insulin and your blood sugars are uncontrolled. Although type 2 diabetics can develop ketoacidosis if their blood sugars become very uncontrolled, typically this is a condition that type 1 diabetics are most at risk to develop. Because there is no insulin, the body cannot get the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells and the body begins breaking down both muscle and fat to get the energy that it needs. Normally the kidneys help in getting rid of the excess glucose when blood sugars are high and they also help get rid of the excess ketones when levels of ketones are high in the blood stream (one of the reasons to drink plenty of water when low carbing). When both ketones AND blood sugars are high, the kidneys can't keep up with getting rid of both of them and so the levels of ketones in the blood start to rise. Combined with other chemical processes that are going on due to the uncontrolled blood sugars and the breakdown of fat and muscle tissue you eventually get ketoacidosis.
When you are low carbing and your blood sugars are well controlled, you cannot develop ketoacidosis even if you are a diabetic. I've been low carbing for over 2 years at a carb level of 30 grams per day or less and I'm also a diabetic. I have no doubt that I've been in benign dietary ketosis nearly the whole time and have yet to have a problem with it and my bloodwork indicates that I've never been healthier. The diabetes clinic my get very excited if you are spilling ketones in your urine, but as long as your blood sugar is within normal limits, it's not a problem.

We recently had a very lively discussion about this very topic in the War Zone forum that you may find interesting and informative. Here's the link: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=117720

Many thanks for your warm welcome. I feel sure I can come here for support and advice as I launch out into the unknown.

I've just been surfing the web and downloading tons of articles about the carbo issue - and having my suspicions confirmed over and over that not only have I been accelerating the diabetes with my diet but have been given unhelpful advice on how to control it.

Bye for now, and I hope to tell you in a couple of weeks how we get on.

Tricia

hello thish. i am a medicine student and i think that this diet is great for you...
1. you have diabetes tipe 2 (insuline indipendent) and not 1 (insuline dipendent) .that means that you are hyperinsulinic (sorry for my english. it is not my mother language) or your body has devoloped a condition called the resistence to insuline. it means that your body produce more insuline then necessary. the problem is in the fact that this increased production of insulin cause exhaustion of the pancreas. so, you can become insuline-dipendent diabetics (type 1) after years
if you start this diet, your blood suger will go down...
2. diabetes tipe 2 go togother with obesity. losing weith means losing diabetes type 2 and hypertension.
3. diabetic tipe 2 can not go into chetoacidosis.(chetoacidosi is caused by one hormone called glucagone who is inhibited by insulina. so when you are diabetic type 1, you don't have insuline at all. so you can go into chetoacidosi. when you are type 2, you have a more insuline that you actually need...so it can bloock glucagone)
3. don't eat less than 20 carbs at day
4.your dangar is hyperosmolar coma. it happens when your blood suger is more than 700. doing this diet, your suger level is going to get down.

Thanks for that advice. Yes I also think this diet will be good for me. (I hope I can stick with it!!)
I have been worried about the situation for a long while and I hope it's not too late now to deal with it. My great-aunt died of pancreatic cancer, and my cousin from cancer of the liver. My mother and a great uncle had diabetes (my mother type 2, and she lost one leg - amputated, and died of a heart attack; my great uncle lost his sight). So you can understand that I need to get my own health situation under control.

I do have gallstones - will eating more fat affect this? Of course I've been advised (as usual) to "eat less fat" but on the Atkins diet that won't be possible. Does anyone have thoughts about gallstones to share? Anyone got them - and how did you find the diet affected that?

Tricia

Hey Tish, not to get all "woe is me" but let me tell you something. The last three years of my life have been, um, interesting. I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Hysterectomy. Big fun. The next year I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. More fun. Half way through that year it was hypertension, low thyroid, and gallstones. My choleseterol and triglycerides were through the roof. My doctor and I tried several approaches to find a solution. I tried to eat the way they told me to at the diabetes clinic. Really bad. My triglycerides went even higher and my endocrinologist put me on metformin because my sugars were all over the road. Then I tried vegetarian. My cholesterol came down a little but my triglycerides and LDL were high. HDL was in the toilet. I could see my doctor already arranging a bed for me in the cardiac care unit. On top of this my gallstones were developing a life of their own until finally, early this year(after a year and a half of eating "properly" mind) I had an attack of pancreatitis which was brought on by gallstones lodging in the bile duct of my gall bladder causing the duct to swell and send bile where it had no business being. These gallstones came into being during this period of eating "well". I was in the hospital for 10 days. The swelling in my pancreas finally subsided and I left the hospital to be told I had to go back in the very next week to have my gall bladder removed. The gallstones were annoying my pancreas and since you can live without your gallbladder and you can't live without your pancreas the choice was something of a no-brainer. I know it's too late to make a long story short but let me say this. Everybody in the medical profession (the backward thinking ones) will tell you that the cure for all your ills is a low-fat diet. I didn't have gallstones before I started watching what I ate. My surgeon told me he'd never seen a gallbladder with so many stones in it. Something of a record, I gather. Anyway my own doctor is totally on board with me eating the low carb way. Her father has diabetes and she has him on the program. I don't have to take my metformin anymore. My blood pressure is normal (most of the time). I was low carbing on my own before re-discovering Atkins. I would have to say don't worry. Most people are dim. They hear someone say they eat low carb and immediately assume you'll be sitting at the dinner table with a pound of butter and a spoon. If you want the opinion of someone who's been through the medical wringer the last few years I would say don't worry. Eat a well-balanced low carb diet with natural fats in normal proportions. Vegetables and some fruit. You can't go wrong. If your doctor is an old granny then don't tell him/her or find another doctor (not easy, I know). I'll shut up now. Take care. Hope1

Hi Hope,
Thanks for that! I feel reassured. I think this might be somewhat of a long story too - hope that is OK.

I have had some gallstone attacks and they are not pleasant (but to tell the truth, the WORST attacks only happened during the time my doctor put me on HRT.) Everytime I had a horrendous attack (I did not know at that time what it was) it would affect my pancreas. I used to report back to her about it, and she never offered any explanation, advice or treatment, nor did she take me off the HRT. (I only came off it because I never found a HRT pill that would suit me; they all gave me big problems.)

Meanwhile, I developed high blood pressure, so high that I was having palpitations. Then she put me on a diuretic pill. Well, I did not find out until too late, much too late that this pill is known to deplete all the potassium and magnesium from your body, thus causing high blood pressure and, guess what, diabetes. The doctor is supposed to tell you to take potassium supplements. She did not. My blood pressure continued to rise, so I was urged to keep taking the tablets.

(My BP did not come down again until I stopped taking those pills - my own decision. I just refused to take any more and within a month my BP was back to something like normal.)

Anyway, during that time I had classic diabetes symptoms for years, constant tiredness, going to the loo etc, but not once did she check my blood sugar or change the medication. Finally when I got critical and the symptoms were too bad to ignore and I was about ready to kill somebody for the sake of a juice drink (really obsessive!! Craving) I did some research for myself on the Internet and lo and behold I discovered the facts.

I did a stick test that very day and my blood levels were off the scale. So I went to the surgery. My doctor was on holiday for three weeks so I had to see a young new doctor. They don't like you to know much about your condition so the fact I was telling them to check for diabetes did not go down well, and ever since they have put "self-diagnosed" on my records and refer to me as somebody who must be under suspicion. Because I found out some things they didn't know.

In the meanwhile that doctor removed me from her list and I was placed on the list of a new doctor. He changed my BP tablets and was more sympathetic to my symptoms. But I was now into the whole diabetic treadmill with constant tests, clinics and so forth. Although the levels rapidly came down as soon as I stopped taking those pills, and have stayed near normal ever since, I'm still on their lists. This is perhaps a good thing in fact as at least I can monitor what is going on, and I get free eyes tests once a year for glaucoma etc.

The more I read about low-carb, the more I think the advice I've been given is wrong. They are well-meaning but depend too much on Government guidelines which we all know are "low-fat/high-carb". They seem to worship the Chinese and Asian diets as if they contain some kind of dietary magic that will cure Western ills. It's going to be interesting telling my current doctor about Atkins! (IF I do. I might just wait until I have lost weight and my blood sugar comes down, and then tell him!)

Tricia

Morning, Tricia. I'm glad you're feeling better. It's a bit of a leap of faith, but when it comes down to it we all have to take responsibility for our own health. Modern doctors don't know everything (gasp!). I consider myself very lucky to have a doctor who has an open mind but I think a lot of that is due to the fact that her family has had many health challenges to deal with. As we both know when you're faced with one problem after another you have to find different paths go get you where you want to go because there is more than one way. I'll tell you when I had my pancreatitis/gallbladder attack I was sure I was having a heart attack so I know where you're coming from. I know you don't want a repeat performance . I hope we both continue to feel better and better. Going back to where I was is not an option. I think you feel the same way. Keep smiling it's good for your blood pressure...and just about everything else! Hope1 (Barb)