Part 1 of this 2-part series (#374 here)
relates how “Bruce” lost weight easily by “going off carbohydrates almost
entirely” for two weeks. I met Bruce casually at a New Year’s Eve party and
gave him one of my cards. He decided to check out my website, www.thenutritiondebate.com and then to try Very Low Carb (VLC) eating.
In our earlier conversation that evening, Bruce told me that in those first 2 weeks he had lost 10
pounds. The conversation continues here:
Dateline:
January 14th (still later that evening)
You’re
welcome, Bruce. Weight loss was my original
motivation (in 2002) for eating VLC because, like yours, my doctor thought that being overweight was a cause of T2DM. They were both wrong, as Gary Taubes
and many other experts in physiology and medicine have now exhaustively and
conclusively proved. See my #5 here or Taubes's "Alternative
Hypothesis" in "Good Calories-Bad Calories" (2008), a heavy but
solid, evidence-based read.
An
easier read would be, "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie," the New
York Times Sunday magazine cover story of July 7, 2002, here: My doctor read this, tried it himself, and
recommended the diet to me. That's when I got interested in low carb for weight
loss. And, incidentally, it started the modern revolution in dietary science
that so much of the orthodox profession continues to dismiss. That's why
Taubes, who won the National Science Writers’ Association award 3 times, wrote
GC-BC. Sadly, he was to be disappointed by the medical community’s
response.
Insulin Resistance (IR) is the
cause of T2DM. It is also the cause of obesity, not the other way around. Insulin is the
transporter of glucose in the bloodstream, and so long as there is enough
glucose (from carbs) circulating in the blood, insulin remains elevated and blocks the alternative fuel, body fat,
from breaking down to fatty acids to maintain energy balance . The body
saves this fat, a more dense source of energy (9kcal/g vs.4 kcal/g for carbs
and protein), for long fasts, including famine and winters (from a
Paleolithic/historic perspective). I wrote about this in this post: The
Nutrition Debate #308, “Introduction
to What Causes Type 2 Diabetes,” here.
Since
resuming my column a year ago December, my focus has been on
"Pre-Diabetics," newly diagnosed Type 2s, and those who, like you,
have been told they "might be Pre-Diabetic." The medical societies
have been very slow to revise standards for diagnosis, but they have been doing it. They just haven't
gone nearly far enough.
There are many clinicians today who have, however, and many who
just may (I don't know your values, and I'm not an MD) classify you
unambiguously as Pre-Diabetic, or even a frank Type 2.
I
hope you have a baseline A1c on a recent lab test, because it you stay on your
VLC Way of Eating, you will see it drop, perhaps significantly, and perhaps
even out of the range of Pre-Diabetic completely to below 5.7%. That should be
your goal. "Normal," btw, is between 4% and 5%. Anything above 5% is
a sign of Insulin Resistance.
I
also hope you have a baseline metabolic panel or at least a lipid panel with
which to compare your next lab tests. After doing this Way of Eating for
awhile, my HDL more than doubled from 39mg/dl to 84mg/dl (comparing 15 average
tests for both). And my triglycerides plummeted by two-thirds (from around
150mg/dl average to below 50 average. Both values have stayed there for many years now. My total cholesterol
and LDL cholesterol have been stable and slightly lower. My latest test: TC
184; HDL 91; LDL 84; TG 46.
Google "Metabolic Syndrome." It is
the precursor to and the “unifying hypothesis” for all these metabolic disorders. I wrote
about it almost 5 years ago in an early column of The Nutrition Debate: Metabolic Syndrome.
Dan
BTW,
after one day of eating VLC (a strict version of Low Carb, like Atkins
Induction), before losing weight, I had a hypo and called my doctor who told me
stop taking one anti-diabetic oral med. The next day he cut the other two in
half and soon thereafter in half again, later eliminating the sulfonylurea
completely. Now I just take Metformin.
Dateline:
February 29th (6 weeks later)
I emailed Bruce to invite him to
another party, our annual Winter Wing-Ding. He replied:
Hi Dan,
Thanks much for the invitation, but I am in
Jensen Beach for January only.
Lost
40 pounds [my emphasis] and am
taking One-a-Day “Silver” daily.
Bruce
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