FA-RM: Positive Personal Improvements in Type II Diabetes

A couple of weeks ago I dropped a note on Dr. Eades' blog about my frustration with my grandfather's situation. He's 78 and has been a Type II diabetic for 25 years. He managed his condition relatively well without insulin for at least a decade. However, years of slamming himself with too high of a carbohydrate intake (although probably relatively low compared to most Americans) hasn't helped, and his kidneys recently started to fail.

At my wits end (and knowing that low carb would definitely help my grandfather), I sent him Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution last week at Dr. Eades' suggestion. My grandfather had been ordered on a low potassium diet for awhile by his doc around a month ago. Incidentally, it seems this is a slightly carb limiting diet as well, although he can still have one piece of white bread daily. He is not allowed to have bananas and a lot of other carb-heavy stuff so I suspected he is incidentally controlling his blood glucose in addition to ridding the body of potassium, although that is not the intention of the diet.

He has now read Diabetes Solution almost in entirety and told me he’s learned a ton.

Here are the results of 3-4 weeks on the low potassium diet (which is a semi-low-carb diet, although I’m honestly not sure exactly how many grams he’s eating daily) and after just 1 week of reading Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution and incorporating some dietary suggestions from that book as well:

25 lbs. weight loss in approximately a month.

Waking glucose levels down to 95 ng/mL… not sure what they were before, and it's still not ideal, but it’s definitely an improvement.

Insulin usage down more than 50% — used to be 8-10 units at a time, now down to around 4 at a time. His diet is not even uber low carb yet.

Increased energy.

He and my grandmother are pretty excited about these positive results, although he is finding the low potassium diet limiting (he cannot have things such as tomatoes). I suspect that if they just get over their fear of fat (he has "high cholesterol" and is on statins -- UGH! -- my next target once I learn about his lipid profile) and increase their range of foods they will be a bit more satisfied on a low carb diet. Also, once he is able to be off the low potassium diet his range of choices in food will increase a bit more.

I get the sense they will both definitely continue low carbing, their health and well-being will improve, and my grandfather will add some time to his life. I'm very pleased and excited for him.

As a commenter on amazon said of Diabetes Solution, "If the ADA disappeared tomorrow but this book remained, prognosis for all diabetics would be improved."

Unfortunately, that's too true. That sentiment also applies to the rejecting much of the conventional wisdom of the American Heart Association, which ultimately comes not from good medical research but straight from mouths of the USDA/Big Agriculture.

1 Comments:

At March 26, 2009 5:20 PM , Guy Adamson said...: Glad to hear you were able to communicate the essentials to them and your grandparents improved so quickly.

My uncle died earlier this year from excessive sugar/carbohydrate consumption (what others call diabetes). I don't see diet as being "optional."

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