Could the Atkins diet be sending people to an early grave? It just might.
A new study by Harvard scientists shows that the death rate among people who eat a diet that's low in carbs and high in animal protein is higher than that of people who follow other eating patterns.
In contrast, people who ate a low-carb diet that included lots of vegetables had a lower risk of death, the study found.
To conduct the study, researchers tracked the eating habits and health of 85,000 women and 45,000 men for more than 20 years. The study was published in the September 7 issue of "Annals of Internal Medicine."
Oooooooo. Choose me!! Can I talk about this study?
This study has been a center of discussion already. This was a study by a nutritionist who looked at the data collected in the Nurses Health Study and Health Professionals follow-up. The study had a hypothesis (that low carb meat based diets were bad) and sought to confirm the hypothesis. Unfortunately, the study basically confirmed, garbage in, garbage out.
This was NOT a study of low carb diets, no sane person would claim 150-200g carbs/day is low carb. And there was no broad proportional relationship found, you presumable could cherry pick populations to prove any hypothesis.
I’m T1 so I take insulin via a pump. Normally if something goes wrong with the insulin delivery from said pump then my blood skyrockets and I know I’m going into Ketoacidosis. I’d been on atkins for 3 weeks and I didn’t have the sugar in my system to alert me, I thought I was just in dietary ketosis, then I collapsed. I was lucky it wasn’t during the night or I probably wouldn’t be here. DKA happens really quickly when your on a pump as you only take rapid acting insulin and no background which means if something does go wrong there is no back up
Also I’m now a vegetarian - all that animal fat put me off for life!! Or maybe it’s just because psychologically I now associate meat with DKA lol
Not to hijack, but Im quite curious about what happened to you Jacq. I was under the impression that even on a low carb diet your body would, A. still produce glucose (even us T1s) and B. your fasting basal is meant to cover for this event. Maybe the basal on a pump needs to be adjusted for less carb in circulation in the body? Thanks!
Sorry, don’t understand what you mean by not having “sugar in my system” to alert me? Unfortunately, you had too much blood sugar in your system, hence DKA.
So, was this a pump failure? Not arguing for or against Atkins, but if you didn’t have insulin, or enough insulin, to cover meals what you were eating wouldn’t have made a difference.
i thought that’s what happens in non-d people…u are supposed to go into ketoacidosis on the atkin’s diet…that’s how you/they lose so much weight…i’ve always thought this was unhealthy, even for non-d people
Its ketosis you go into with low carb eating, not Ketoacidosis. check it out <-link
ketoacidosis is for ultra high blood sugar (and from my experience, relative to your mean BS).
There is a few things about it as far as I understand. 1. our ancestors (durring the paleolithic period) survived for mellinea this way, gathering and hunting meat. 2. the mass of carbs we eat today tends to lead to a lack of protein and fat in our diet, causing an epedimic of obesity (also has to do with fat/protein being called the bad guy in CVD). 3. my understanding is breaking down of fat/protein & carbs into glucose is what is supposed to happen in a healthy system. The abundance of carbs we intake means the fat and protein dont always get broken down into glucose and instead get stored for later use (for ketosis for instance). Thus we get fat and our pancreas (storer of fat) has to work harder. Thats why the honey moon period ends, the insulin producing beta cells burn out (am I quoting fromt he book or what?). =^)
Long, short, am I putting my kids on a ultra low carb diet? No, but I am massively restricting the type of carbs and quantity they eat when I can.
That’s ketosis, the natural process of burning fat stores for energy.
DKA, diabetic ketoacidosis, is entirely different. DKA occurs when the body is starving due to lack of insulin. No glucose is getting into the cells & blood sugar soars dangerously high. Fat is burned because no matter how food is eaten, the body isn’t utlilizing it (hence weight loss). Symptoms of DKA are high BG, extreme thirst (blood become acidic & electrolytes are imbalanced–too much sodium, not enough potassium), constant urination, fatigue, vomiting, dehydration &, racing heart rate. There can also be change in vision. Without immediate treatment, DKA results in death,
A: Your body will produce glucose just not at the same rate as if you were eating carbs, my blood sugar was at 10 - this would be high for a non diabetic
B: There is no basal if there is no insulin delivery on the pump. I think that I had a big air bubble in the tubing, either that or I hadn’t resited properly. In other word NO insulin, I’m only ever on novorapid on my pumo which has a very short half life. It’s totally different from being on injections with the long acting insulin
Diabetic Ketoacidosis is caused by a lack of insulin NOT just high sugar. It is usually accompanied by high blood sugar but in my case I hadn’t eaten ANY carbs for over 3 weeks hence why my blood got to 10 and DKA
I’m not arguing for or against law carb diets I’m just saying that in my case it ended up very dangerous and I ended up in hospital in DKA - That is my experience
I am sorry to hear that this happened to you. You are of course right, a pump failure can cause a fast progression into DKA and it doesn’t matter what diet you are using. The insulin used in pumps is a rapid insulin, so within a few hours of a pump failure, your body runs out of insulin (“totally”). At his point, you become at risk of DKA. A low carb diet can help delay DKA, but as you note, your liver produces blood sugar independent of what you eat and you are are real risk of DKA.
Unfortunately, many people believe (including nutritionists) that eating low carb causes DKA. It can put you into ketosis, a natural condition where you burn fat, but alone, a low carb diet won’t cause DKA. And it is important to understand, everybody is in ketosis at times during the day, that is how we burn fat. If we didn’t burn fat, well, we would be “big.”
Yep, that’s what I said–a lack of insulin causing dangerously high BG.
About 58% of protein converts to glucose. Diabetics can eat nothing at all & still experience rising BG. Without insulin we’ll die, irregardless of the diet.
The Atkins diet didn’t cause your DKA. A BG of 10 (181) isn’t typically a DKA reading. So sorry you experienced this.
Well, I guess I do repeat myself and others. I would point out that as you know, I’ve been unable to get a prescription for insulin, and yet despite that I am still alive. Of course, if I ate the recommended diet, I am not so sure. So perhaps in my case, without low carb, I might die.
And of course you have just reminded me of an important point that is actually “back on topic!” This study did not look at diabetics, so the results may not have any relevance anyway to the people we care about anyway.
