Results from 3 Years on Low-Carb for Type 2 Diabetes [New Research Breakdown]

[@Mikerochip1]

Yes, low carb dieting works. I was diagnosed with Type 2 when my A1C was discovered to be 7.4. That was 15 years ago. I went "low carb" and my next A1C was 5.8. I remained in that range for many years until recently when I got careless and started eating carbs again. Oops...big mistake. My last A1C went to 7.1. Plus I gained 20 pounds in just 4 months. Now I'm "low carbing" again, losing weight, and altho I don't know my A1C until I have it taken next week, my blood glucose readings are between 94 and 120. I'm expecting a good A1C. Thanks for a great video. I hope other people with type 2 listen and start paying attention to their carb intake. (Subscribed)

[@FastingWell]

Thanks for sharing! Best of luck! 🙂

[@s12_22g]

Friend is pregnant now, blood sugat is at 120. Her diet plan given by her doctors are mainly rice, bread, fruits (banana), veggies and she must avoid meat, even fish. She said herself that if she eat everything on the plan, her blood sugar goes up (as if 120 is not high already). But telling her to cut carbs, her answer was "but what can i do, thats what my doctors said i should eat". Logic and common sense are so hard to find these days.

[@jimlofts5433]

check out Dr Berry and wife Neisha who have had 2 children on a low carb diet

[@s12_22g]

@@jimlofts5433 The problem are the people who sees what havoc carbs make to their bodies yet still continue it because their doctors says so.

[@FastingWell]

Yeah, pregnancy is an interesting example. Seems logical to at least try reducing carbs somewhat when the blood sugar is high, but for some reason it hasn't caught on that much yet. Not sure why she was told to avoid meat, I don't think that's typical.

[@s12_22g]

@@FastingWell I asked the doctor if rice, bread/ carbs are really recommended. The answer was, carbs is needed by the baby. So i asked what is in rice and bread that is so important and that is not found in non starchy veggies and meat.... The answer, silence. It was ok to keep eating these things that drives the blood sugar high because they just then give Glucophage to control it.

[@FastingWell]

@@s12_22g yeah, it's like even if you want to include carbs in the diet, why not get most of them vegetables and other relatively low glycemic or slow rising sources? As opposed to bread and rice. I suspect that would be a healthier approach. But there's a whole culture and dogma around things like pregnancy and diabetes, so you sound like a heretic if you say something different. 😆

[@SandraCarterAtHomeNC]

Right. Low carb works. I've been doing low carb (under 40 net carbs) for 11 months now. I have lost 30+ pounds and I've reduced my insulin injections from 70 mg per day to 30 mg per day. I've been on diabetes medication for 25 years so I think it's going to take several more months to reverse my insulin resistance and T2D. Thanks Ben. I really found your fasting videos helpful also.

[@FastingWell]

Great to hear Sandra! Thanks for sharing :-)

[@s12_22g]

How much unit did you start with? Whats the highest? Why did it took 25 years?

[@SandraCarterAtHomeNC]

To answer your question, I was diabetic for 25 years. It took 10 months to reduce my insulin injections use from 70 units to under 30 units per day by changing my diet to low carb (25-40) and doing a 36 hour fast weekly and intermittent fasting plus stop snacking in between meals. Watch Ben's videos. He explains it all very well.

[@s12_22g]

@@SandraCarterAtHomeNC For 25 years, you did not know what makes your blood sugar goes high?

[@SandraCarterAtHomeNC]

Nope.😊 and the doctors just kept prescribing more insulin. I know I was getting worse just didn't know how to change it at the time

[@Alan_Clark]

One problem with this is that the people also lost weight, which is also know to reverse your diabetes. A low fat, high carb, reduced calorie diet will reduce your weight and also reverse diabetes as a consequence. So, this report does not tell us how much of it is due to weight loss, and how much to reduced carbs. Another point is that it does not tell us how things change with time. Is the improvement mostly in the first few months, or do things continue to improve year after year, even when you weight has levelled off? I would really like to know the answer to this.

[@prunelle19]

It's not about the weight...on a very low carb diet you can reverse your diabetes way before having lost the weight. The only way to maintain it is to stay low carb.

[@FastingWell]

Good points. However, it has been shown that a low-carb diet will improve features of metabolic syndrome (including blood sugar/diabetes) even without any weight loss. Jeff Volek has referenced this study, where they made sure the patients didn't lose weight, but still improved metabolic syndrome on low carb / keto. Unfortunately I don't have the link at my fingertips right now... Regarding the specific timeline and everything, I did link to the full text of the study if you want to see what other details they provided. :)

[@jamiem3115]

There is absolutely nothing metabolically healthy about a high carb diet in any of its forms. Humans require only the essential nutrients (amino and fatty acids) to be metabolically healthy. Carbs play no part in increasing or maintaining health. The Gluconeogenisis process provides humans with the precise amount of Glucose the Body needs.

[@FastingWell]

I would also add that while weight loss tends to improve blood sugar, and improve insulin resistance, and therefore improve type 2 diabetes... When someone is "carb intolerant" (= diabetes), it makes a lot more sense to restrict carbs, versus just trying to lose weight while eating a bunch of carbs. It's pretty basic logic at that point (and the literature/research certainly supports low carb as a powerful option for people with type 2 diabetes, better than just weight loss alone).

[@FastingWell]

I couldn't find the one Jeff Volek was talking about, but here's one study showing carb restriction vs a low fat diet (equal calories) is much better for metabolic syndrome (which includes DM2, obesity, etc.): pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19082851/

[@mlmontalvo]

Type 2 in remission here. Low carb alone isn’t enough. Stressful regular exercise, fat loss (especially visceral fat), muscle gain. My current diet is quality high protein, cruciferous vegetables mainly, leafy greens, whole grains in moderation, low glycemic fruits, nuts, and get my fats from oily fish and olive oil. A1C at 4.8 - 5.0 for the last 2 years.

[@FastingWell]

Hey, thanks for sharing! Low carb might be enough for some people (with a mild or early case), but exercise and other health measures certainly help too. 🙂 And obviously exercise helps in other ways besides blood sugar. Sounds like some awesome progress, thanks for sharing!

[@carrikartes1403]

Insulin resistance is a result of a B1 deficiency. B1 is necessary to get all energy into the cells (fats, sugars, and proteins). My husband is no longer on any insulin or diabetic meds by supplementing Benfotiamine (fat soluble form of B1) and modestly cutting carbs.

[@SandraCarterAtHomeNC]

I was eating the standard American diet that was recommended by the ADA and I think USDA and I thought they knew what they were talking about. Obviously they did not know about very low carb for diabetics. Thanks for caring

[@FastingWell]

You're welcome! And yes, only very recently have low carb diets been included as one of the "options" for diabetic patients from the ADA. But the evidence continues to mount for all the benefits of reducing carbs in diabetes.

[@SandraCarteratHomeinNC]

Ben. Have you seen any studies like this that include fasting or fasting alone studies on people with T2D?

[@FastingWell]

Hey Sandra, good question! As far as I know, there aren't any large or high quality studies in that regard. Dr. Fung et al did a case series w/ 3 patients who used fasting to get off all their insulin, among other health improvements: casereports.bmj.com/content/2018/bcr-2017-221854 I've heard Dr. Fung explain elsewhere that it's hard to get fasting-related studies approved, because the IRB (institutional review board) will often cite safety concerns--even if those concerns are not well-founded. When Megan Ramos was on episode 14 of my podcast, she explained that she and Dr. Fung have treated over 20,000 patients with fasting, and many of them have reversed diabetes using fasting as the primary therapy. So the data is essentially out there, it's just not collected into one research paper, that I know of. Here's that interview: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXSbk2irh9uXrMU There are other fasting studies out there, but it seems like they usually focus more on weight loss, and often the studies are not very well designed (e.g. the fasting arm is actually eating 500 or 1000 calories a day or something like that, vs actually fasting, and other issues). So the conclusions on those studies can be a little sketchy as well.

[@FastingWell]

Obviously there are lots of papers out there that I haven't read, so I could be missing something significant. This is mostly just off the top of my head. :)

[@FastingWell]

Dr. Fung also wrote a book called "The Diabetes Code" based on their experience treating patients with fasting, the underlying science, etc. I've listened to some of the audiobook, but I'm not sure about all the references. He probably has some interesting references in there as well. Here's that book: amzn.to/3ugHZ8C

[@SandraCarteratHomeinNC]

@@FastingWell Thanks Ben. I am already a Fungster. LOL. I love that guy and his helpful videos.

[@stepheng2054]

Nothing about what a low carb diet entails; how much, which foods, etc. also nothing about insulin resistance, nothing about how most people don't know they are diabetic until after many years of it.

[@Mikerochip1]

I'm trying to respond, but for some reason my comments are not posting. There is a site called Blood Sugar 101 which is an excellent source for everything related to Type 2. Good luck.

[@UncleHemi]

That would be a very long video. This is primarily about a single study. Use the search function. There is literally thousands of good videos on all of that. Dr. Phinney, Volek, Mason, Berg, Berry, Bikman , Westman should get you started. I'd start with Westman. He lays it all out very simply.

[@Mikerochip1]

@@UncleHemi The website "Blood sugar 101" is not a video. It is a website devoted to helping people control their blood glucose. It is packed with excellent information...including low carb diet info. It has helped thousands of people control their diabetes, so I'm sorry you dismissed it by saying "That would be a very long video." Of course there are other sites and videos that are good, but Blood Sugar 101 has a wealth of information all in one place.

[@FastingWell]

As one of the other commenters noted, this video was focused on a specific study, so I wasn't getting into all the details about keto, insulin resistance, etc. :) We did talk quite a lot about insulin resistance, including how people often have it for a long time before they know, in my interview with Dr. Ben Bikman: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5W7nZ2ng9WmoaM (includes timestamps so you can jump around) I also covered keto / low-carb basics in episode 25 of my podcast: fastingwell.com/episode25/

[@kiwikim5163]

Do another video on the need to have insulin level checked. Much more important for diagnosing pre-diabetes. Prevention!

[@jimlofts5433]

good comment most doctors focus on blood sugar not the hyperinsulinemia

[@FastingWell]

Good thought! It certainly is useful to know, since the high insulin preceeds the high blood sugar by a decade or two 🙂

[@russbrown6453]

The carnivore diet did wonders for me. All the above. Except 1 thing. LDL. I'm a typical lean mass hyper responder...

[@FastingWell]

Yeah good point. It was interesting that the LDL went down on average for that group of patients.

[@NUR23RN]

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