This
column and the previous one, from 2017, like every column in the Retrospective
series, were originally published weekly. In the Retrospective series they have
been edited for size, format and content and are being published daily.
Part 1 of this 2-part series (Retrospective
#374) 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
he had lost 10 pounds. Our conversation continues here:
Dateline: January 14th
(still later the previous 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 Retrospective #5 or Gary 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. Google it. My
doctor read it, tried the diet himself, and recommended it 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 still
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 to his book.
INSULIN RESISTANCE 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 levels 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/historical perspective).
My current focus in this column is 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 classify you unambiguously as Pre-Diabetic, or even a frank,
incipient Type 2 diabetic.
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 to below 5.7%. That should be
your goal.
I also hope you have a baseline metabolic panel or at least a
lipid (cholesterol) 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 latest cholesterol test: TC 184; HDL 91; LDL 84; TG 46.
Dan
BTW, after one day of eating Very Low Carb, I had a hypo and
called my doctor. He told me stop taking one diabetic oral med. Later that week
he cut the other two in half TWICE, later
eliminating one. Now I just take 500mg Metformin.
Dateline: February 29th
(6 weeks
later)
I emailed Bruce to invite him to
another party, our annual Mid-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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