The FastDay Forum

[carorees]

At last, a top scientist speaks out in favour of changing the diet advice for diabetes patients from low fat to low carb!

Health Insight UK has just published a great summary of a paper by leading biochemist Professor Richard Feinmann that was recently published in the scientific journal Nutrition which calls for carbohydrate restriction to be the first-line of attack in treating type 2 diabetes, giving 12 scientifically sound reasons for his claim. And there is an interview with Prof Feinmann about the totally bogus theory behind the low fat diet here

The full paper is available here

You might want to note that Dr. Richard K. Bernstein is a co-author. He is far more knowledgeable about the use of low carb diets for diabetes than any of his coauthors, and in fact, pioneered their use in the 1980s.

Several of the other authors have a higher profile in the low carb community, but their advice for using low carb for diabetes is a bit too much along the lines of the man who has a hammer and sees everything as a nail. Bernstein gets that low carb is one tool among many. His book is required reading for anyone with a diabetes diagnosis.

Thanks so much for this @carorees. I read Bernstein years ago when I was first diagnosed, but my doctor said "He's a quack...", so I listened to him, then to a her, along with a couple of dietitians and diabetes educators and have struggled with my numbers for years.

Intro 5:2 & a lower carb diet and WA LA!! finally losing weight, finally getting near to normal blood sugars with reduced insulin dosages and feeling so much better! Wish I hadn't been the good little obedient patient for all those years. I told my teen daughter about Bert Herring (Fast-5) and his "Study of one" - find what works for you!!

I'll be taking a copy of this article with me to my doctor's appt. tomorrow just to ask for her support. So far, she's been supportive of 5:2 with reservations, if my numbers are still good, I may totally convert her yet

Thank you Caroline for these links. It is very nice to find corroboration for what my husband, as a Type2 diabetic, & I with the help of this forum have evolved as our new & current way of eating because of his good blood results on fast days indicating lower carb works. He also realised some time ago how much sugar is added to low fat foods so we now avoid all of those & have organic full fat yoghurt & butter!

[carorees]

And here's another study on the benefits of a low carb diet: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694

And a summary of the paper in the NY Times: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/he ... rrer=&_r=0

People on a low carb diet lost more weight and improved their cardiovascular risk profile more than those on a low fat diet.

It will be interesting to see what Behind the Headlines makes of that study: http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

As for the Jerome Burne analysis of the Feinman et al study, it's understandable that it's titled that way as the paper's authors are mostly in the US but it's not wholly applicable in the UK where the guidance from the UK diabetes organisations seems to be somewhat more flexible (nice overview by Christine Michael http://www.diabeteschoices.org.uk/2014/ ... ld-you-go/ ) and Burne doubtless knows that.

I'd also question some of Feinman et al's assumptions/assertions in the 12 points but that's possibly angel on pinheads time as there are international differences in emphasis and they're writing for a US audience. And, overall, the point holds, as the UK organisations recognise, that some people manage dysglycaemia or diabetes II better with a lower carb approach (whatever that means for an individual). (Of course, there will be the inevitable time lag as some diabetes clinics have adopted the 2011 guidance in a timely manner and others have yet to do so.)

At some point, as per the Lind Alliance stance,
http://www.lindalliance.org/Introduction.asp
it will be more useful for those affected if there are trials not only on macronutrient make-up of diets but also their genuinely long-term sustainability - akin to Lind's Priority Setting Partnerships.
http://www.jlaguidebook.org/jla-guidebook.asp?val=15

NB: for those who are interested, Evans, Thornton & Chalmer's book, Testing Treatments: Better research for better healthcare is available as a free download from the Lind Alliance. It's an excellent, easily read book about clinical trials and what their results mean in the day to day treatment of individuals.
http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pdf/tes ... tments.pdf