As the new admin for the No Fructose page, I just have to remind everyone that I have absolutely no qualifications to discuss or recommend specific nutrition advice or manage health problems – Belinda Fettke.

I will be posting articles that I find educational, supportive and challenging with a nutrition and health focus. I am looking forward to providing resources that allow people to question what processed foods we consume in our western diet, and help make decisions on their health.

My first post is a wonderful article on Low-Carb Diets and Diabetes, published in the August Issue of Today’s Dietitian. Special thanks to Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE for sharing this with me. It is a topic very close to Gary’s heart.

“In a critical review of the literature, Feinman and 25 other doctors and researchers present 12 points of evidence supporting the use of low-carbohydrate diets as the first approach to treating type 2 diabetes and as the most effective adjunct to pharmacology in type 1 diabetes. “We had 26 authors because we wanted to include experts who had [practical] experience using the diet, scientists who understood the basis of the diet, and medical researchers who understood the diet and supported it as a great treatment,” says Feinman, who was lead author of the review. The following summarizes the 12 points of evidence presented by the reviewers:

• Hyperglycemia is the most salient feature of diabetes. Dietary carbohydrate restriction has the greatest effect on decreasing blood glucose levels.
• During the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes, caloric increases have been due almost entirely to increased carbohydrates.
• Benefits of dietary carbohydrate restriction don’t require weight loss.
• Although weight loss isn’t required for benefit [in glycemic control], no dietary intervention is better than carbohydrate restriction for weight loss.
• Adherence to low-carbohydrate diets in people with type 2 diabetes is at least as good as adherence to any other dietary interventions and is frequently significantly better.
• Replacement of carbohydrate with protein is generally beneficial [to glycemic control].
• Dietary total and saturated fat don’t correlate with risk of cardiovascular disease.
• Plasma saturated fatty acids are controlled by dietary carbohydrate more than by dietary lipids.
• The best predictor of microvascular and, to a lesser extent, macrovascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes is glycemic control (HbA1c).
• Dietary carbohydrate restriction is the most effective method (other than starvation) of reducing serum triglycerides and increasing high-density lipoprotein.
• Patients with type 2 diabetes on carbohydrate-restricted diets reduce and frequently eliminate medication. People with type 1 usually require lower insulin doses.
• Intensive glucose lowering by dietary carbohydrate restriction has no side effects comparable with the effects of intensive pharmacologic treatment.

http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/0816p24.shtml

Vested Interest Disclaimer – This food pyramid is part of our Nutrition for Life message which is about eating food that is fresh, seasonal and local, and as a result, lower in highly processed foods. We encourage following Low Carbohydrate, Healthy Fat principles for people who want to take back control of their health, especially if you have Type 2 diabetes. I am the proud cofounder of the Nutrition for Life Centre and want to acknowledge that I have a vested interest in promoting the health of our community in Tasmania. The dietitians, nutritionists and diabetes educator at Nutrition for Life always work with your own health professional to make sustainable dietary changes. ‪#‎nutritionforlife‬