Sunday, September 11, 2016

Type 2 Diabetes, a Dietary Disease #345: How Diabetic Do You Want to Be? (Part 2)

That sounds like a stupid question, I know. Nobody wants to be diabetic. But once you’ve been diagnosed as Pre-Diabetic or Type 2, you have, for life, for better or worse, to one degree or another, a condition called Insulin Resistance (IR)). For all intents and purposes, that means you are to some degree Carbohydrate Intolerant. You got this way by 1) having a genetic predisposition and 2) eating a diet too high in carbohydrates for too long.
Don’t blame yourself entirely. By 1961 the AMA had come out against saturated fat and dietary cholesterol and in 1977, the Senate Select (McGovern) Committee issued their Dietary Goals of the United States, recommending we all eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Both the medical and public health establishments were tragically misguided in these recommendations, and they were soon ably abetted by Agribusiness and Big Pharma.
So, if you’ve been diagnosed either Pre-Diabetic or Diabetic (Type 2), as I ask rhetorically in #344, using the hemoglobin A1c, today’s marker for blood sugar control, “How Diabetic Do You Want to Be?”
Is an A1c of <7.0% (or <8.0% if you are elderly) the target that you and your doctor are comfortable with?
Or, is <6.5% your target, to avoid being officially diagnosed a type 2 (by current medical standards)?
Or, is <5.7% your target, so you can comfort yourself with the phrase, “consistent with the absence of diabetes”?
Or, is an A1c in the “low 5s” your target? It has been for me for half of the 30 years that I have been a diagnosed Type 2. My doctor isn’t worried, though. He, like most and the ADA, considers under 7.0% “well controlled.”
Or, is an A1c ≤5.0% your target? I know several long-term type 2s who manage their disease this way; this is the true “optimal” or normal A1c. They do this with a combination of a strict Low Carb diet and insulin injections.
So, to be an informed consumer/patient, you need to be armed with some facts. The following is filched from one of, if not the best, on-line sites for Pre-diabetics, Type 2s and Type 1s: Jenny Ruhl’s “Blood Sugar 101.”
Risk Quantified For Non-Diabetic A1cs and Heart Attack Risk
The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study tracked 11,092 black or white adults who did not have a history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease for 15 years. It found no association between fasting blood sugar and risk of heart disease, but A1c was a different story. The table below summarizes the correlation of baseline A1c with the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. [CVD]
Multivariate-Adjusted Hazard Ratio [with my translation, for the statistically challenged].
5%:                    0.96 (0.74-1.24) [If you have an A1c of 5.0%, your chance of developing CVD is just                           below “even.”
5% to < 5.5%:  1.00 (reference) [In this range, your CVD risk is THE SAME AS ANYONE ELSE!]
5.5% to < 6%:  1.23 (1.07-1.41) [In this range, you are almost 25% more likely than if your A1c is                               5% to <5.5%.]
6% to < 6.5%:  1.78 (1.48-2.15) [In this range you are more than 75% more likely (range almost 1½                           to >2 times)].
≥6.5%:              1.95 (1.53-2.48) [If your A1c is ≥6.5%, you are almost twice as likely to develop                                   cardiovascular disease, and the range of risk is from more than 1½ times to almost                               2½ times.
Glycated Hemoglobin, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Risk in Nondiabetic Adults. Elizabeth Selvin et al.NEJM Volume 362:800-811. March 4, 2010 Number 9.
Keep in mind that because these subjects were probably diagnosed as "non-diabetic" using a fasting glucose test many of those with the higher A1cs probably were diabetic at the study outset based on post-meal values. If you are recently diagnosed with diabetes and have no signs of heart disease, your risk/A1c ratio should be similar if not identical to those shown here.”
So remember, if your doctor is like mine (or any MD, DO, RD or CDE who follows the ADA Standard of Care), (s)he is going to consider anything under 7.0% (or maybe 6.5%) to be “good control,” or worse, “optimal,” so you are pretty much on your own if you choose to strive to attain an A1c lower than 6.5%, or <6.0% or even <5.5%.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing this chock-a-block of useful information! In today's world, where this disease is becoming more and extra common throughout the world diabetes empowerment would play a significant role.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Nice try, Mona. But changing the hyperlink does not alter the fact that you are just hawking pills. This site is about type 2 nutrition. We don't peddle pills.

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  3. I like this post.. I have an better idea... Thanks for sharing this post.. health blog

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    1. Thanks, James. I appreciate it. I have now published over 450 posts.

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