[podcast flashvars=”titles: ‘Diabetes Proof (Ep. 28)'”]http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/wp-content/uploads/llvlcep28.mp3[/podcast]
Greetings, low-carbers! Welcome to another great episode of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore” — our 28th one, in fact. Yeah!!!
Speaking of facts, this second-to-last installment in our “Fact-Filled February” continues what Jimmy started in Episode 27 about the positive impact of livin’ la vida low-carb on treating diabetes with THREE MORE recent published studies.
Today he continues to look at all the neglected but very telling research proving the efficacy of the low-carb diet as it relates to diabetes management and– dare we say it–its role as a potential cure! Can it REALLY be?
But don’t take our word for it–the FACTS speak for themselves! Check it out!
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 28:
– Diabetes study by Dr. Jørgen Vesti Nielsen in June 2006 issue of Nutrition & Metabolism
– Diabetes study by Dr. Mary C. Gannon and Dr. Frank Q. Nuttall in March 2006 issue of Nutrition & Metabolism
– 2006 ADA Scientific Sessions where Dr. Eric Westman presented his diabetes research results
– Adam Campbell’s feature on Dr. Mary C. Vernon in the December 2006 issue of Men’s Health magazine
– Jimmy Moore’s interview with Dr. Mary C. Vernon
– Jimmy Moore’s interview with Dr. Eric Westman
– Take our podcast poll
Did you miss anything Jimmy said? For a full transcript of this episode, please click the following link:
Transcript of Episode 28:
This is Episode 28 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore” and I’m ready to pick up where I left off in Episode 27 sharing with you more research about how low-carb diets are being used to help diabetics manage their disease naturally and effectively without the use of any drugs or insulin. If you missed the previous podcast, then go to TheLivinLowCarbShow.com so you can hear about the first two studies I mentioned on Monday. Today, I want to highlight three more remarkable studies that were conducted on diabetics who were placed on a low-carb diet to treat their illness. Each of these studies only further solidify the efficacy of low-carb as the best option to tackle diabetes.
You’ve heard the old saying, “when it rains, it pours,” right? Well, when it comes to the precipitation coming down in the form of solid research in favor of the low-carb lifestyle, I’d say we have a 100% chance of a gulley washer on our hands people! Continuing on with my “Fact-Filled February” series today, we again turn to the scientists who are working deep in the trenches doing all the massive research on low-carb diets and their impact on diabetes. The first study I want to share with you is from Swedish researcher Dr. Jorgen Vesti Nielsen who released the details of his nearly 2-year observation of diabetes patients who were put on a low-carb diet in the scientific journal Nutrition & Metabolism in June 2006. What he found was improvements in the study participant’s blood sugar levels and a reduction in the amount of diabetes drugs needed to control their condition. Dr. Nielsen put 16 obese diabetics on a diet consisting of 20/30/50 ratio of carbohydrates/protein/fat and he reported all of those patients saw great improvements in their hemoglobin A1C after 22 months on that diet. Interestingly seven of the patients who had been on a low-fat diet prior to the study and were immediately put on the 20/30/50 diet also saw improvements, including a reduction in their body weight, improved glycemic control, and a reversal of a six-year long decline of renal function for one of the patients (attributed to the improved glycemic control and weight loss that came from being on a low-carb diet). This is the longest such study of its kind and is proof that low-carb can be used to revolutionize the treatment of diabetes.
The second study I want to share with you today came out in March 2006 and was also published in Nutrition & Metabolism from Drs. Mary C. Gannon and Frank Q. Nuttall, both from the Center For Diabetes Research at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. They wanted to test the theory that you can bring about improvements in patients with Type 2 diabetes that do not require any weight loss or insulin injections to control blood glucose concentrations. What they wanted to know was if it was possible to do this by changing the KIND of foods eaten rather than the AMOUNT of food consumed. For their study, they looked at the protein:carbohydrate:fat ratios of three groups of patients with untreated Type 2 diabetes over a 5-week period. One group had a 15:55:30 ratio (commonly known as the low-fat diet), another group had a 30:40:30 ratio (which closely resembles The Zone diet), and the final group had a 30:20:50 ratio (which you may recognize as a form of livin’ la vida low-carb).
What were the results? The 30:40:30 ratio Zone-like diet saw a moderate but significant decrease in 24-hour integrated blood glucose area and the percentage of total glycohemoglobi). But, even more exciting, was the 30:20:50 ratio diet group (which was lower in carbs) saw an amazing 38 percent drop in the 24-hour glucose area, which was a reduction in fasting glucose that resembled close to “normal” readings and the percentage of total glycohemoglobin fell more than two percentage points from 9.8% to 7.6%. Even a 30:30:40 ratio diet saw similar results. Based on these findings, Dr. Gannon and Dr. Nuttall concluded that changes in diet alone could indeed help control diabetes without the need for weight loss or medication. This is truly unbelievable research that should be front-page news around the world today. But have you heard about it anywhere else? How about a blurb on the national news? CBS? NBC? ABC? Anyone?! Not likely! And what about the American Diabetes Association, hmmm? Does this not constitute breaking news that diabetics should be made aware of? Sure it is, but nary a word from them either. It’s funny how the media and all these so-called health “experts” will fall all over themselves when a suspicious-looking new “study” comes out making the low-carb nutritional approach look bad, but then they will conveniently play dumb when positive studies like the one are released. Their hypocritical double-standard has never been more exposed than it is right now!
I had the privilege of first hearing about this study at the Nutritional & Metabolic Aspects of Carbohydrate Restriction conference in Brooklyn, New York in January 2006 which I attended with my wife Christine. In my notes from the conference, I wrote down some of the key thoughts from their presentation of their research. It turns out that it is the protein in the low-carb diets that aided the production of insulin in the study participants because protein actually stimulates the production of insulin in addition to providing satiety as we discussed in Episode 25 and 26. Dr. Gannon added that fats, which I did a podcast about in Episode 24, can delay the digestion of carbohydrates which is why consuming dietary fat is so important as part of a healthy eating plan, especially for diabetics who want to control their blood glucose levels without the use of any medication. Dr. Gannon also said that since starchy, carb-loaded foods are 100% glucose, they are directly responsible for raising blood glucose levels to dangerously high levels in Type 2 diabetics. Now that right there is reason enough to start livin’ la vida low-carb, wouldn’t you say?! By the way, that 30:20:50 diet is commonly known as the “Low Biologically Glucose Diet,” or LoBAG for short. The fat composition is 50%, with just 11 percent of that being saturated fat. This was found to be the very best change in diet to bring about improvements in the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes while keeping the weight stablized, the researchers found. If you are a diabetic, then talk with your doctor about the LoBAG approach to treating your condition. Don’t accept the notion that you have to rely on self-injected insulin the rest of your life. There are better treatment options available and it’s time to give patients a real choice about how to deal with their diabetes.
Finally, and I’ve saved the best for last, I have some research to share with you that was presented at the Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in June 2006 by Dr. Mary C. Vernon, President of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians and co-author of “Atkins Diabetes Revolution,” and Dr. Eric Westman from the Durham, NC-based Duke University Medical Center. You may recognize Dr. Vernon’s name because she was featured nationally in an article late last year in Men’s Health magazine by Adam Campbell about her work with diabetic patients. I will include a link to that column in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com.
Dr. Westman wanted to compare two low-carb diet approaches in overweight and obese Type 2 diabetics: a low-calorie, low-glycemic index diet and a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet. He recruited volunteers from the community to participate in this outpatient, randomized, clinical trial. In order to be considered for the trial, the potential study participants had to have a glycated hemoglobin (known as HgbA1c) of greater than 6.0, a body mass index (BMI) from 27-50, between the ages of 18 to 65, diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes for a minimum of one year, saw the onset of diabetes after the age of 15, have no history of diabetic ketoacidosis, and have the desire and determination to lose weight for the duration of the six-month study. Any patient with serious or unstable medical conditions, such as liver or kidney disease, were not included in this study. The average age of the study participants was 52 years old, 80 percent of them were female, and just over half were Caucasian.
Each of study participants were randomly placed in one of two groups: a low-glycemic, calorie restricted diet group or a carbohydrate intake of less than 20g daily group. Both of these groups were placed on a multivitamin as well as a vanadyl sulfate/chromium supplement to be taken daily over the course of the study. They returned to the outpatient research clinic weekly for the first three months and then every other week thereafter. At the end of the first three months of the study, the average HgbA1c for the low-carb group dropped from 8.7% to 7.1% while the low-glycemic group only fell from 8.0% to 7.5%. Additionally, weight loss in the low-carb group was over 18 pounds in the first three months while the low-glycemic group lost about 12 pounds. Regarding diabetic medication usage rates at the conclusion of the study, Dr. Westman found that 79 percent of the low-carb group had either greatly reduced or even eliminated their need for drugs to manage their diabetes compared with just 66 percent of the low-glycemic group. An algorithm was used to adjust the medication reduction while striving for euglycemia. The study conclusion was that both of these low-carbohydrate lifestyle interventions led to a reduction in the need for diabetic medicine and improvements in blood sugar control. However, Dr. Westman found that the larger reduction in the HgbA1c levels after three months made this version of low-carb, which diet closely matched the Induction phase of the Atkins diet, the better treatment option for diabetics according to the study.
Since medication reduction is required to avoid hypoglycemia, glucose self-monitoring and medical supervision are recommended if these approaches are used to treat diabetes, Dr. Westman explained. Additionally, Dr. Vernon said these findings from the Duke study concluded that the Atkins diet is likely the “best solution” to manage Type 2 diabetes while its participants were surprisingly still maintaining compliance after six months because cholesterol levels stabilized, triglyceride levels were greatly reduced, and HDL cholesterol went up in the study participants using this approach. Despite this positive response to the Atkins approach to treating diabetes, there’s still a huge stigma with the Atkins diet, something Dr. Vernon discussed at the time. Here’s what she said: “Sadly, confusion generated in the media over the past couple of years by competing business interests has misled Americans and caregivers. As a result many have turned away from what is likely the most effective means to not only control diabetes with fewer medical interventions and reduced medications, but actually reverse the course of the epidemic: it’s The Atkins Diet.” I had the privilege of interviewing both Dr. Vernon and Dr. Westman at my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog last year, so I will provide a link to those compelling interviews in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com.
Perhaps putting the final nail in the coffin of the Atkins diet by the media and their so-called health “expert” buddies was just a wee bit premature, especially as it relates to the health and well-being of diabetics. And the amazing thing is there’s even more good news to come out of the research community in the coming months and years. I can’t wait to share it all with you when it happens!
That’s it for Episode 28 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” Be sure to visit TheLivinLowCarbShow.com and take our podcast poll to guide the future direction of this Internet-based health show. You can also provide us with your feedback about the show and listen to past episodes while you are there. Thanks for listening today and come back next Monday as we wrap up our “Fact-Filled February” series with one final study to share proving low-carb living is a safe, effective, and nutritionally sound dietary approach for losing weight and getting healthy. So, until next time, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!