March 13, 2018 · 7:28 PM

Traditional Dietitian Warns About Ketogenic Diets

She forgot to mention that ketogenic diets might cause bad breath, otherwise all the usual shibboleths are here. She implied that the diet could kill you.

One of her biggest gripes is that rapid weight regain is a problem after you go off the diet. But that’s a problem with all diets.

If you keep eating like most Americans, you’ll be fat like most Americans.

Clearly, I disagree with much of what the dietitian writes. Under “Categories” on the left side of this page, click “ketogenic diet” for details.

Here’s a taste:

“Limited food choices are not the only unglamorous part of the diet. In order to detect if your body is in ketosis, you must pee on a stick that will detect ketones in your urine. You will also experience some intense side effects. The combination of cramps, constipation, irritation, brain fog, insomnia, and more that are common during the start of the diet are labeled the “keto flu.” Symptoms seems to last anywhere from a week to a month until your body becomes accustomed to ketosis.”

Source: A dietitian weighs in on the Ketogenic diet for weight loss – Philly

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March 12, 2018 · 2:27 AM

Ketogenic Diets Coming Back In Style

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Click the top link above for a five-year Google trend on “ketogenic diet.” WordPress.com doesn’t allow me to embed the graph and I’m not smart enough to use WordPress.org.

A snippet from a recent NBCNews article:

“A main benefit of the diet, and why many of its followers praise the eating plan, is weight loss. Multiple studies show promising results: In a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, obese men dropped about 14 pounds after following the diet for a month. And in a longer-term study published in Clinical Cardiology, obese adults adhering to a ketogenic diet for about six months noticed significant weight loss — on average, 32 pounds — as well as reductions in total cholesterol and increases in beneficial HDL cholesterol. A review study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition also found that the weight loss seen within the first three to six months of following the keto diet was greater than the loss from following a regular balanced eating style.”

Source: Happier, Healthier, Smarter, BETTER: Life tips | NBC News

So I expect to sell more copies of my KMD: Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet book. Someone’s keto Mediterranean diet is even mentioned in the NBC News article. If you have my Conquer Diabetes and Prediabetes book, then you already have the KMD.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Front cover

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March 11, 2018 · 4:44 PM

Women With Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity-Related Cancer Risk

In general, women are a bit less likely to get cancer than men. But having type 2 diabetes and obesity negates that advantage.

“If you’re a woman with type 2 diabetes, you may be interested in a recent study done regarding obesitiy-related cancer risk. The CDC says that 40 percent of cancers in the U.S. are associated with being overweight or obese. These include cancers of the breast, gallbladder, liver, thyroid, kidneys, uterus, pancreas, upper stomach, colon and rectum, ovaries, multiple myelomas, adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, and meningiomas.

When it comes to diabetes and obesity, the duo “seem to be partly overlapping risk factors for the development of obesity-related cancer”. This especially includes breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer in those with type 2 diabetes, according to study authors.”

Source: Study Looks at Women With Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity-Related Cancer Risk

Regarding prostate cancer, I’ve seen one study that concluded diabetics are less likely to get prostate cancer.

 

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March 9, 2018 · 1:14 AM

At Healthline: Are There Really Five Subgroups of Diabetes?

Ginger Vieira has a short and sweet article at Healthline on the new proposed diabetes classification system you may have heard about. I’ll be surprised if the proposal gains any traction. If it does lead to helpful clinical management changes, we won’t see them for at least 5–10 years. A snippet:

Today there are four common types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), and gestational. And these classifications are plagued by an enormous amount of confusion, misconceptions, and even misdiagnosis between the types.

To complicate things further, a new study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology is suggesting people with type 2 diabetes should be categorized into an additional four subgroups.

“This is the first step towards personalized treatment of diabetes,” said Leif Groop, a doctor and professor in the diabetes and endocrinology department at Lund University of Sweden.

Source: Are There Really Five Subgroups of Diabetes?

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March 7, 2018 · 4:55 AM

Physicians Disagree On How Aggressively Diabetes Should Be Treated

If you’re a patient, you probably don’t like to hear this. You like to think that doctors have looked carefully at the appropriate scientific studies, understand  the underlying pathophysiology in detail, then reach a consensus on treatment. Sorry, but not in the case of diabetes. NPR has the story. For example:

A major medical association today suggested that doctors who treat people with Type 2 diabetes can set less aggressive blood sugar targets. But medical groups that specialize in diabetes sharply disagree.

Half a dozen medical groups have looked carefully at the best treatment guidelines for the 29 million Americans who have Type 2 diabetes and have come up with somewhat differing guidelines.

The American College of Physicians has reviewed those guidelines to provide its own recommendations, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It has decided that less stringent goals are appropriate for the key blood sugar test, called the A1C.

“There are harms associated with overzealous treatment or inappropriate treatment focused on A1C targets,” says Dr. Jack Ende, president of the ACP. “And for that reason, this is not the kind of situation where the college could just sit back and ignore things.”

The ACP, which represents internists, recommends that doctors aim for an A1C in the range of 7 to 8 percent, not the lower levels that other groups recommend.

Source: The American College of Physicians Recommends A1C Levels Between 7 And 8 Percent : Shots – Health News : NPR

I come down in favor of the lower HgbA1c values.

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February 28, 2018 · 4:14 AM

Tina Speaks From the Heart: A friend’s heart attack, a documentary film, and a celebrity death 

“On Saturday evening, I watched the movie WIDOWMAKER and went to bed with a heavy heart thinking of the high incidence of heart attacks among young men in the age group 38 – 50 in my social circle in the past couple of years.  6 of them had heart attacks, 2 survived. (One of them a friend. It was only after the friend got a heart attack that I started observing the trend.) The remaining 4 left behind young widows, little children and old, distraught parents.After some time, I stopped counting. This is the first generation in the history of mankind to lose their adult children not to war, wild animals or plagues, but to chronic diseases. Quite heartbreaking to see parents bury their young children in the prime of their life.I was grateful that my spouse and I started LCHF 4 years ago. He has lost 30 kgs and has some more to lose.

I realise that had we not started and continued to follow LCHF, I would have already become a widow or would become one in the next 10 years. Or I would have probably left him a widower.”

Source: A friend’s heart attack, a documentary film and a celebrity death – Indian LCHF

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February 28, 2018 · 3:59 AM

Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet Beats Low-Fat Diet for Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes

Conquer Diabetes and Prediabetes, Steve Parker MD

Olive oil and vinegar: prominent features of the Mediterranean diet

I first wrote about this study way back in 2009. To recap how the study was done:

Newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics who had never been treated with diabetes drugs were recruited into the study, which was done in Naples, Italy.  At the outset, the 215 study participants were 30 to 75 years of age, had body mass index over 25 (average 29.5), had average hemoglobin A1c levels of 7.73, and average glucose levels of 170 mg/dl.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two diets:

  1. Low-carb Mediterranean diet:  rich in vegetables and whole grains, low in red meat (replaced with poultry and fish), no more than 50% of calories from complex carbohydrates, no less than 30% of calories from fat (main source of added fat was 30 to 50 g of olive oil daily).  [No mention of fruits or wine.  BTW, the traditional Mediterranean diet derives 50-60% of energy from carbohydrates.]
  2. Low-fat diet based on American Heart Association guidelines:  rich in whole grains, restricted additional fats/sweets/high-fat snacks, no more than 30% of calories from fat, no more than 10% of calories from saturated fats.

Both diet groups were instructed to limit daily energy intake to 1500 (women) or 1800 (men) calories.

All participants were advised to increase physical activity, mainly walking for at least 30 minutes a day.

Drug therapy was initiated when hemoglobin A1c levels persisted above 7% despite diet and exercise.

The study lasted four years.

The bottom line for the investigators then was  that “a low-carbohydrate, Mediterranean-style diet seems to be preferable to a low-fat diet for glycemic control in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.”

Nevertheless, in 2018 the most commonly recommended diet for diabetics is still a low-fat diet.

What About Long-Term Effects?

In 2014, our indefatigable researchers published additional long-term results of this study’s participants, who were followed for a total of 8 years. That’s an incredibly long time for a diet study. Major findings;

  • Compared to a traditional low-fat diet, the low-carb Mediterranean diet postponed the start of diabetes medications by two years , and it wasn’t simply due to weight loss.
  • Complete or partial remission of diabetes occurred in 15% of the low-carb Mediterranean dieters within the first year and 5% after six years. These rates were two to four times higher than seen in the low-fat group. (Lower hemoglobin A1c at the start of the study was a predictor of long-term remission. That is, your best chance of remission is when your diabetes is relatively mild when diagnosed.)
  • Compared to the low-fat diet group, the low-carb Mediterranean dieters saw a greater reduction in Hemoglobin A1c levels.

I don’t know exactly what these successful low-carb Mediterranean dieters ate, but if you need a low-carb Mediterranean diet now, why not try mine?

Steve Parker, M.D.

Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet, front cover

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February 23, 2018 · 11:39 AM

Reinagel Ponders Whether Calcium Supplements Are Safe

 

Death in a bottle?

Death in a bottle?

Monica Reinagel is a smart and media-savvy nutritionist who brought me on board as a blogger at NutritionData many years ago. Click the link below for her surprising conclusion on calcium supplementation.

Monica writes:

“The National Osteoporosis Foundation published a new report this week, insisting that calcium supplements are safe for your heart. Two weeks ago, Johns Hopkins cardiologist Erin Michos published a paper saying the opposite.

She claims that the NOF review (which was funded by a pharmaceutical company that makes calcium supplements) omitted certain studies (such as the ones she included in her own review) that might have changed the conclusion.

These are just the latest two volleys in a five-year-long tennis match between experts on whether you should or shouldn’t take calcium supplements.  And you thought politics was divisive.”

Source: Calcium Supplements: Safe or Not?

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February 22, 2018 · 3:51 PM

Mediterranean Diet Shares Top Ranking With DASH Diet in U.S. News  and World Report

But they both have too many carbohydrates for most folks with diabetes. That’s why I created the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet.

“Best Diets Overall are ranked for safe and effective weight loss, how easy it is to follow, heart health and diabetes help and nutritional completeness.”

Source: Best Diets Overall : Rankings | US News Best Diets

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February 21, 2018 · 11:39 AM

Soft Drinks Linked to Doubled Risk of T2 Diabetes and LADA

I enjoy an aspartame-flavored Fresca now and then

I enjoy an aspartame-flavored Fresca now and then

LADA is latent autoimmune diabetes in adults.

This new study is out of Sweden. The potential disease-inducing soft drink dose was 400 ml or 13.5 fl oz per day. In the U.S., a typical soda can is 10 fl oz or 355 ml. Surprisingly, artificially-sweetened soft drinks were just as guilty as regular beverages.

From MNT:

“The study included 2,874 Swedish adults, of whom 1,136 had type 2 diabetes, 357 had LADA, and 1,137 were healthy controls.

The team analyzed the self-reported dietary data of each adult, looking specifically at the number of soft drinks consumed up to 1 year before a diabetes diagnosis. Participants’ insulin resistance levels, beta cell function, and autoimmune response were also measured.

The researchers found that adults who reported drinking at least two 200-milliliter servings of soft drinks a day – whether they contained sugar or artificial sweetener – were twice as likely to develop LADA and 2.4 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, compared with those who consumed fewer than two soft drinks daily.

What is more, adults who consumed five 200-milliliter servings of soft drinks daily were found to be at 3.5 times greater risk of LADA and 10.5 times greater risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of whether the drinks were sugary or artificially sweetened.”

Source: Diabetes risk doubles with more than two soft drinks daily – Medical News Today

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