I’m only at 27 years of diabetes—and 37 years of age—but one thing I strongly suspect about diet is that you need to find what works for your. And since there is no one-size-fits-all with diabetes, there is probably no one-size-fits-all with diet. I don’t think that there is one diet everyone should be following. We all have different metabolisms, and different diets may work for different people, or even the same people as their bodies change.
I followed a low-carb diet for about a year, but for the past six months have been eating a diet higher in carbs. For me, a big part of why I switched back to higher carbs is because I can’t eat dairy, eggs, or most types of processed meat due to severe food allergies. Most processed meats contain things I’m allergic to, even though I’d be able to eat the meat itself. When I eat out, I most often can’t eat anything grilled due to butter or other allergens being used on the grill. I often bring 75-100% of food I’ll need for meals when I travel, and trying to travel with low-carb meals is much harder than travelling with higher-carb meal. Trying to bake low-carb items that are free of all my allergies has proven to be nigh impossible (I haven’t yet had a true success). Continuing to eat low-carb was seriously impacting my quality of life in a negative way. (I will say that eating low-carb with no other dietary restrictions is not an issue - lots of choice and eating out is easy.)
I originally began eating low-carb for two reasons. The first is that my thyroid was high, which created massive spikes in my blood sugar that I could not control except by avoiding carbohydrates. More recently, my thyroid has been low, which I find makes my BG run lower and causes after-meal spikes are much easier to control. And the other reason was that I was embarking on a career path where I could not risk going low. I’ve since moved away from that, but if I took it up again, I would definitely adopt lower-carb eating again.
An increased number of lows (and spikes) is the downside to eating more carbohydrates. Then again, my control even on a low-carb diet was not as tight as many people achieve (my A1c was in the low 6s, and I still had highs and lows daily.). Even with eating more carbohydrates, my A1c has only risen by 0.4%. I will take that trade.
One of the other things I am learning is that I need some balance in my life. With multiple chronic illnesses, I need to find strategies for managing all of them, not prioritizing one at the expense of the others. And I also need to find some balance between control and risk.
Like everything related to diabetes, the key is experimentation. Experiment with low-carb. Experiment with a plant-based diet. Experiment with someone in-between. Find what works best for you and stick with it. If it stops working for whatever reason, re-evaluate what works and find a new strategy. This is as true of diet as it is of any other aspect of diabetes.