Hello everyone,
I decided to start a thread for mostly for people who have been diabetic awhile mostly directed at people who are new to diabetes. I would like to start this thread with something that is a fact and everyone else add to it.
Here is my first statement…TO ANY NEW TYPE 2’s…SUGAR AND CARBS CAN KILL KILL YOU!
Ok…the rest add to it…and it matters not whether you are type 1 or type 2.
Well, that is kind of a bad start. Not all sugars and carbs will kill you. If that were so, my Mom wouldnt have lived with type 1 diabetes for 40 years. And I should have died years ago then, not made it 17 years as type 1.
Just my opinion.
Geez. Now I"m all depressed, Steve.
Negativity will kill you, not sugar and carbs.
What Robyn said!
Thank goodness I’ve had 36 years of figuring out how to live WELL with diabetes instead of letting scare tactics bring me down.
Are you having a bad day Steve? Are you ok?
Diabetic (T1) 30 years, very few minor complications. I eat more sugar than some “healthy” people I know, but I am not dead yet. I am not going to die anytime soon. But of course, T1, I have the option of treating those instances before they are a high.
No…I am fine. I was just trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to start a thread of things that are just common sense for new diabetics…sorry if it came across wrong.
Ah, that explains a bit. Then I can add to it.
Not checking your bg is a deadly sin. Not knowing doesn’t stop the damage. Not taking meds, same problem, it doesn’t go away when not treated.
If you live with diabetes, you are NOT alone. If you feel that you are alone, tell us and we’ll show you that you are not 
If you are trying to scare people or turn people off, the title to your discussion certainly will be effective. Perhaps if you rephrase it to:" For Diabetics…What You Don’t Know…CAN HARM YOU!" might attract your desired audience.
Knowledge and experience comes with time and sometimes it seems the target is always moving.
Kristin, thanks for pointing that out, reminding us. A lot of us have spent most of our diabetic lives feeling alone. It is great to know we are NOT!
BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO!!! THE NEWEST PUBLISHED RESEARCH SAYS complications are halved for those who follow intensive therapies.
Your body needs sugar and carbs in order to function.
Yes…the ones that occur naturally…it is the processed stuff that is bad for you…
Yes, but people who believe that carbs are ‘off limits’ are going to have other issues getting nutrients and balancing their blood glucose levels. Carbs, protein, and fat ALL contribute to our glucose levels (see chart) and a healthy diet will involve learning to balance these elements in the right combinations.
I am not a low-carber, per se, but I do agree that the recommended allowance from the ADA (180g or more a day) is too high and that some of the low-carb diets (30g a day or less) are unrealistically or unhealthily low. I strive for somewhere in the middle.
Telling a newly diagnosed diabetic that carbs will kill them is, I believe, dangerous and melodramatic.
you are worried about watering the lawn while the house is on fire.
there is a way to flat CURE type 2 diabetes. It is called Atkins Induction.
Nutrition is NOT a problem, not when you have a literal life-threatening disease. Atkins allows all the green vegetables you want… ALL you want. Body weight quantities, if you wish.
If you wish to supplement the Atkins Induction with whatever nutrients you want, then take a good multivitamin. Take two per day, if it makes you feel better.
But the bottom line is this-- you MUST break the insulin resistance of type 2, or you will be slowly dieing the rest of your (foreshortened) life fighting a losing battle, or starving yourself. Type two results, in many people, simply because there is nothing to sustain the body from meal to meal. The carbs from the previous meal burn out, and leaves you hungry. And carbs are the cure for this ‘hungry’. Which simply throws more fuel on the fire that is your home-- your body. The body tires of the cyclic variations of blood sugar, and sets out to cure it… it does this by constructing a protein sheath around the cells, inhibiting the action of insulin. This IS type 2.
So, what is required is to break the back of this affliction, known as type 2 or insulin resistance. And the method for that is to simply remove carbs from the diet, and put the body on a protein/fat metabolism.
For some type 2s, this may result in a fast turnaround, if the protein sheath is not well established. For other type 2s, this may necessitate a lifelong regimen where 80 or more percent of the calories come from protein and fats, so that there is NO ‘valley’ of blood sugar between meals.
But for the newly diagnosed type 2, or a type 2 who is tired of a steadily losing battle dictated by the food pyramid and ‘modern medicine’, there is NO question-- the ONLY curative approach is to REMOVE carbs from the diet. Ruthlessly, cold bloodedly REMOVE carbs. Then, in 2 months, or longer, perhaps much longer, very gradually increasing amounts of low-GL, low GI (GL=glycemic load, GI=glycemic index) carbs can be added back in to the diet. But for type 2s, those already demonstrated to be prone to the insulin resistance called ‘type 2 diabetes’, initially carbs must be REMOVED.
If, in 2 months, or 6 months, or 2 years, it is possible to get to an 80 percent protein/fat, 20 percent carb diet, then it can be done. But ONLY when regular monitoring of blood glucose demonstrates that it CAN be done. If you want to see good numbers in a type 2, REMOVE THE CARBS.
I don’t care that the grass needs watering… first you put out the fire in the kitchen.
Take the necessary high quality multivitamins if you want the nutrition missing from not eating grains. But first you have to deal with first problems. And the first problem is, insulin resistance. And YOU MUST BREAK THAT INSULIN RESISTANCE, or the type 2 will spend the rest of their days either starving, or fighting a losing battle-- losing their feet, losing their kidneys, losing their eyesight, losing their cardiac and circulatory system.
The food pyramid is KILLING Americans.
Mike Kemp
I’m not sure whether you’re addressing my assertions or Steve’s, but either way, the newly diagnosed need to know how to live for the long haul and are scared enough as it is without this fear-mongering.
I am a Type 1 since childhood, not a Type 2. I have to manage every gram of carb I take in. 6 saltine crackers can raise me over 100 mg/dL. So it’s not that I’m saying I don’t understand the importance of healthy carb management. But the primary thing I have been taught in my nearly 20 years of seeing a nutritionist at my endo visits is that you have to balance nutrition, exercise, and medications with sustainable plans for a lifetime with diabetes. People are going to eat bread.
I do not believe, regardless of type, that a complete ban on any one source of nutrients can sustain us for a long and healthy life. If I relied on mutlivitamins rather than balanced nutrition (and no, I’m not referring to the food pyramid) of fat/carb/protein, my body would not function as well as it does today. Telling the newly diagnosed that anything will kill them is to perpetuate the myths and fears about diabetes that new Type 2s get from their GPs, families, and the morning talk show circuit. Type 2s need to learn to balance and manage carbs to lead a healthy daily life. Focusing on “inevitable” complications can be, I fear, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Type 2s need to know that nothing will “kill” them except for sustained mismanagement of their condition through neglect and poor blood sugar control. Neither a donut nor a whole wheat tortilla will kill them, but there is a better choice between the two for good glycemic management.
I am a type one for about 50 years. I also have a BS in chemistry from Tulane.
I do not need to be lectured on diabetic management-- type one or type two. I fully and completely understand the problems-- and the problems are different, though symptoms may appear similar, and the side effects, long term, are similar.
I fully understand that a type one’s problem is one of management. And what I am trying to impart to you is that type two does not have to be ‘managed’. It can be CURED. Made to go away. Made to disappear.
That is what I am talking about. CURING type two. Removing it as a management problem, because ‘management’ of type two by standard methods means, quite literally, condemning the patient to a lifelong losing battle. You are attempting to condemn type twos to a lifelong battle that they are going to LOSE. YOUR METHODS WILL ONLY GUARANTEE FAILURE.
Carb diets CAUSE type two. Removal of carbs from the diet for a period of time, be it in 6 months or a few years will CURE the type two. THEN you worry about ‘nutrition’. But even then, conventional heavy carb dependency will reinstate the problem. The type two is already demonstrated to be vulnerable to insulin resistance. And no matter what, returning to the diet which CAUSED the type two insulin resistance is simply a non-starter.
I seek to CURE type two-- I seek to put out the house fire. The problem of managing type one is not related to type two. Different causes, different approaches.
Type one has wrought havoc in my life, yet I am still in possession of ten toes, I have 20/20 vision, my blood pressure is 120/70, I have full kidney function, and my total cholesterol is 150. I seek to spare the type twos the fate of having to actively fight their condition for the REST OF THEIR LIVES… Your approach will lock them into the same disaster which we, as type ones, cannot avoid.
The type two in a carb-free meal plan can eat all the green vegetables they want, and operate at a good and efficient energy level, with good nutrition. Take the multivitamins. As the insulin resistance fades, carbs can be gently added in to the diet as low GL, low GI. BUT FOR THE FIRST EFFORT, YOU MUST REMOVE THE CAUSE. Your method guarantees a lifelong losing battle. It is just that simple.
Conventional wisdom is RESPONSIBLE for the current epidemic of type two diabetes. And what I advocate will REMOVE the insulin resistance. Yes, it will take time, but it is a fight that the type two can WIN. Limping along with the conventional wisdom means a lifelong losing fight. I can be no more plain and no more blunt.
I refer you to the previous analogy-- stop trying to water the lawn. The house is on fire. You don’t want to ‘manage’ the fire-- you want to exterminate it.
CURE THE TYPE TWO. THEN worry about ‘nutrition’. Along the way take a good multivitamin.
Mike Kemp
Whether you call type 2 “controlled” or “cured” is a game of semantics to me. I have serious doubts about anyone’s claim to “cure” anyone of a serious metabolic condition. As it is, we do not “know” that type 2 is caused by diet, as there are multiple paths to developing the condition. I am not proposing a “plan” or “method” to kill or manage someone else’s condition. I AM, however, proposing that you calm down and stop sentencing our type 2 members to death. You are framing me as some sort of scapegoat for conventional medical practice when I am simply acting as a concerned forum moderator who wants to turn the tide on this “the boogie man will KILL you” thread toward a more supportive discussion reflective of our values here.
Hi guys,
You know CURE (esp when it is all caps) is a word that I have been hearing since 1970. So an assertion of a cure with no scientific studies to back it up usually ends up falling in the snake oil category. Going lo-carb has been shown to help, but I would really like to see any studies that recommend no-carb, have any even been done?
This statement You are attempting to condemn type twos to a lifelong battle that they are going to LOSE seems really just designed to put someone on the defensive and serves no purpose in any type of debate that you want someone to take seriously. How about a little more discussion, a little less shouting (ie CAPS), a little less blustering and a little more impartial evidence?