6 Months Into Peating, I Get Diabetes

[zooma]

It looks to me like you were eating a high fat diet, and also low sugar. This is the opposite of what peat recommends so to attribute this development to 'peating' is very unfair IMO.

I might have this wrong but it seems like you essentially just added loads of sugar to your paleo diet

Apologies I can't offer much advice, but if you wanted to use ray's suggestions to fix this problem then I would suggest to read his articles/interviews and to stop drinking bulletproof coffee.

 

[burtlancast]

I would suggest to read his articles/interviews and to stop drinking bulletproof coffee.

And i second this by pointing to 3 ongoing transcription projects treating about diabetes, and in need of volunteers.

- viewtopic.php?f=78&t=5458
- viewtopic.php?f=78&t=5450
- viewtopic.php?f=78&t=5457

 

[pboy]

you're not gonna wanna hear this, its clear you are into the paleo meat eating thing, but that's probably the worse thing for metabolism for many reasons. I just re read what you posted, I kinda just wrote that first post without reading the details of what you've been doing, but its really obvious why Peat suggested to keep your calcium up and take baking soda. He's really smart. Google Ray Peat's article on calcium, its gonna take focus to actually understand and incorporate and might actually be over your head still depending on how knowledgeable you are with the hormonal workings of the body. I wouldn't doubt if your progesterone is low also, which I have my own theories on but just in general its pretty certain or you wouldn't have the sugar issues. Anyways, what you have going on is a situation of chronic cortisol, and parathyroid hormone, which have probably left most of your cells in an inflamed, calcified state, impairing their ability to use sugar properly. That quote that Shultz put about not being able to use sugar internally is much worse than excess external sugar is like...hitting perfectly home, and really is a beautiful metaphor in a way. If you had high progesterone you'd likely be protected much more than you are from the stressed dietary conditions but It seems you are not. Yea you could try to just supplement x and y to mask the problem but in fact those are never sustainable and, its like trying to sweep sin under the rug. Id honestly suggest doing everything dietarily. You stopped drinking milk casue of the 'A1' issues yet still eat a bunch of cheese? Not to offend, but it seems you are like entrenched with some dogma and not really making true coherent sense of what you are doing, I only say this because you have to get really real with yourself if you want to change your state..like just get real to yourself about whats going on with how you think about things

 

[tobieagle]

What is your TSH, temperatures, pulse usually?
I am pretty sure you can fix your problem with an adequate thyroid therapy.

1/2 of Cynoplus can be way too much to start.
You are not overweight which indicates that you are running on adrenaline/cortisol which keeps you lean.
Your high pulse reaction to the cynoplus is no surprise in this context, because thyroid hormone makes your cells more sensitive to adrenaline.

I would try to start low (maybe 1/8th of a cynoplus). Then wait 2 weeks while monitoring temperature, pulse, mood, blood sugar etc. Then increase and wait another 2 weeks and so on ...

Until you get there, you can try to cope with the high blood sugar by eating frequent small snacks instead of large meals.

 

[burtlancast]

You stopped drinking milk casue of the 'A1' issues yet still eat a bunch of cheese? Not to offend, but it seems you are like entrenched with some dogma and not really making true coherent sense of what you are doing,

Just for reminders, cheese is never a problem because the A1 quantities released are minuscules.
Only A1 milk poses a threat to health.

 

[artemis]

While you are researching, you might want to check out Gerson therapy - Burtlancast has posted about it, and I think he has some links to information he recommended. I'd predict something along those lines would be this would be more likely to be effective thatn high protein/low carb startegies.

Yes, my daughter believes in Gerson a lot and she gave the the book about it. I read it, and started incorporating some of the things they suggest: I started making green juices again, had a bunch of those for a time. They recommend oatmeal for breakfast, I did organic oatmeal for awhile, and also did some coffee enemas during that same time. (Oops! I guess Westside PUFA's will accuse me of saying "outlandish things" again. Is "coffee enema" an outlandish thing to say? Then he'll challenge me on whether or not I ACTUALLY did coffee enemas!) Anyway, I was desperate, and my daughter has been pushing Gerson since this started. I liked the diet and the juice, the coffee enemas felt really good (afterwards!), but after I guess about 10 days I didn't notice any changes in numbers, so I've kind of slacked off on it. Still do some aspects of it occasionally.

I guess a simple thing to ask would be...if you didn't have the little meter to check your sugar, would you even suspect that it was high or whatever? like how do you feel

Well when this started, I definitely knew something was very wrong, I was wicked thirsty, peeing a lot, leg cramps waking me up every night, and various other symptoms that I've listed before. This was when it was in the 400's. More recently, as it's been going down, I feel it less and less. One of the remaining symptoms, or more like a feeling than a symptom, is this strange feeling of fullness that sort of wells up in my throat. Not nausea, but just a feeling in my neck, throat, even like the back of my palate and sinuses, just a full feeling. It's hard to describe. It was much worse before. I guess it's similar to a wave of nausea but without the stomach involvement, without the actual nausea. It comes in waves, it's not constant. Some days this week I've gone half a day or so before I feel it. Other days it starts in the morning. Other than this last remaining thing, no, I wouldn't know anything was wrong at this point. I feel pretty good.

its clear you are into the paleo meat eating thing

Actually, it's only this past week that I've been eating more meat than usual, the main reason being that it's one of the only things I CAN eat, without raising my blood sugar. Since starting Peat in November, I have eaten less meat than I used to BP (before Peat!). I just listed all my protein sources in my last post -- my foods were in no particular order of how much of each I consumed.

its really obvious why Peat suggested to keep your calcium up and take baking soda. He's really smart.

The understatement of the year! He's a genius, and a kind and generous man. He's my hero. I love everything about him. Reading his work has changed my life.

Not to offend, but it seems you are like entrenched with some dogma and not really making true coherent sense of what you are doing

No offense taken! I'm the first one to admit that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. In fact, i just this morning went ahead and signed up for a program with the naturopathic doctor I mentioned earlier. She follows Peat, and she specializes in diabetes. As far as being "entrenched with some dogma," I don't know what that dogma would be. I'm experimenting with different things, and doing what works.

 

[pboy]

yea I'm sorry I didn't mean to be rude, I feel for you...there was a period a while back when, I never tested it but I'm sure I was having sugar problems..like a few years ago, mostly just cause I was eating a lot of sugar without nutrition, but know the feeling. I doubt you're too far off, cause a lot of your diet seems pretty good. I can sympathize, or it makes sense, why youd wanna keep the sugar low as like a precautionary mechanism, but I think in the long run you're gonna have to re establish sugar metabolism, by using sugar, to kind of wedge out the gunk if you will in the cells that is preventing proper respiration. In that calcium article peat wrote which is amazing, he talks about how...the cells mitochondria when under the influence of parathyroid hormone chronically start losing magnesium that's suppose dto be there and instead the calcium goes in which it shouldn't be there, and when that happens, the cells have a hard time using sugar. Parathyroid is triggered by having too much of a phosphorus to calcium/magnesium ratio, and meat is like the worse offender in that case...its quite difficult to make up for even like 5-6oz of meat in a day. He cites a study where removing the parathyroid gland from animals eliminated diabetes which is very telling. Olives, and cinnamon, are actually very abundant in the other direction, so if you are enjoying them that can be good...in moderation cause they both have their own drawbacks...cinnamon can actually impair sugar usage too and olives can add up PUFA. But yea, the best things might be just like...cooking potatoes in a high mineral water, maybe even molasses, lotta fruit (that doesn't offend), cheese...and try to actually limit the meat intake...cottage cheese isn't actually good cause its mostly the phosphate portion of the milk rather than the calcium. I think peat intuited this as being the culprit because he recommended keeping calcium up and baking soda which can help kinda pull that calcium from in the cell to outside the cell just by virtue of PH changes, it sorta encourages sugar becoming Co2 which then carries calcium as it moves out of the cell, I think that's how it works...but you might wanna not go too high with that, ive actually gotten lackadaisical playing with baking soda a while back cause I geuss it over alkalized. If you like and can handle well cooked greens, that might be a decent thing to use too...I just don't like recommending them cause they can be gastric irritants...if you do use any, collards are the best they have almost no oxalates where as kale and chard and stuff do, and herbs

 

[artemis]

Thank you, pboy. I did get some collards today at the grocery store!

Guess I'll go ahead and write a quick run-down of all supplements I take, since I've never done that.

First about the thyroid. I have been hypo all my life, untreated. Every time I had it tested they would say I was "borderline," so I never got any treatment for it. But I have always been cold, low temps, really low pulse (50's), tending towards constipation, etc. After discovering Peat, I ordered some Cynoplus and Cytomel. Got the Cynoplus and Tryotex. Started with tiny crumb of Cynoplus in January. Got elevated resting pulse rate within a few days. 120's to 130's, peaking in afternoon. Quit taking it after about a month. The elevated heart rate continued for months. I really wanted to try T3 only, but we all know the issues with that. Got Tryotex and Tiromel, took a few of each of those, but never felt anything. Only started back on a little Cynoplus maybe 6 weeks ago, when I was still in the throes of the very high blood sugar numbers, just out of desperation. Thought it couldn't hurt. And I think it has helped a little. I'm not getting the real high pulse like before, it usually peaks around 80 -90 in the afternoon. I take about 1/4 in the morning and 1/4 at night. Temps are still low, around 96 - 97 on waking, and rarely break 98 during the day. I'm thinking of maybe increasing the dose a little.

Other supplements I take:
magnesium malate, magnesium oil spray, and epsom salt baths (gonna start making the mag. bicarb water)
calcium, in the form of eggshell powder
niacinamide powder, about 1,400 mg/day
B1
B2
B6
B12
folate
chromium
biotin
ascorbic acid
D3 (on days when I don't get sun)
Estroban (ADEK)
Progest-E
Pregnenolone
DHEA

I try to take these every day, but I end up not taking anything at least 1 or 2 days out of the week. Just on those extra busy days, when I forget the morning ones, I'll just skip the whole day.

And of course I am currently on Metformin, but I don't think I'll be continuing that once this bottle is over.

 

[tara]

I don't know all the theory wrt when vit-C supplements are likely to be helpful or not. I think it is needed for regenerating tissues. I know Peat has said he has concerns about contamination from production processes (esp. lead), and that people can usually get enough from food. My personal experience has been that when I've taken high doses (eg 1g), it has not felt great. I took none quite a while after reading this from Peat. I have recently started taking a smaller amount occasionally (eg 250mg every few days/week) to see if will help with skin issues - I can't tell much difference so far.

If I've understood it right, I would expect the niacinamide to be most helpful if it is spread out over several doses through the day, and in conjunction with lower fat intake (since a key part of why Peat recommends it for improving sugar metabolism is that it hinders release of fat).

I guess you've experimented with pregnenolone and seem to do better with it, and had go at optmising dose? I only did a short experiment, and I may have taken too much - I had a worse week or two, then stopped it. Could have been other factors. I think it has a long half-life, so once or twice a week may be enough to make quite a difference. There are one or two threads (incl. Haidut) discussing some possible negative consequences of supplementing pregnenolone - with the effect of lowering stress hormones - while thyroid function is not up to the task of taking over from the stress hormones. Don't know if this is relevant for you, but it crossed my mind.

I don't know how long to expect it to take to get significant improvements in blood sugars if you are doing the most helpful things. I imagine it would vary a bit from person to person. So I don't know if 10 days is a good trial or not for Gerson ideas. I think tbp took longer than that to get numbers she was happier with - went on faith and theory for while. Did you go virtually no fat during that trial, or just add in a few things to your otherwise moderate - highish fat diet?

If I'm reading what you've said right, it does look as though the long term picture for you has been fairly low carb and highish protein and fat, and derange glucose metabolism seems to be a common consequence of that.

I've been thinking an analogy about energy. If sugar oxidation is the primary energy supply, and the fat-burning processes are a built-in back-up generator (and maybe glycolysis too - haven't thought through the analogy for this). When the primary energy system is out of fuel (ie there's a sugar deficiency), it's really handy to be able to turn to the backup fat-burning system, even though it's a little noisier, and creates a little more pollution, and does a little damage along the way. If it's brief, and everything is working as it should, it's not much problem, and you can easily clean it up after the main system is back up. If the main energy system is not working, you really need a back-up, too, and you may sometimes need to quit flooding the malfunctioning system with what is usually it's preferred fuel. But then you have a choice about whether to try to repair the main system, or patch it with drugs or supplemental insulin (which have their own risks), etc, or give up on it, stop supplying high-octane fuel, and just accept running on the back-up system indefinitely, even though running on it long-term will inevitable cause damage of it's own, and make it harder to repair the main system. In this case, repairing the main system may mean cleaning up the secondary fuel and biproducts, not flooding it with preferred backup fuel that will clog the main system.

 

[tara]

Have you tried bag-breathing a few times a day for a few days? If CO2 levels are too low, and so oxygen supply to tissues is also low, this can interfere with oxidising sugar. May not be your issue, but may be worth a try. I think you have to have enough alkaline minerals/buffers in your system for this to be helpful. If you are running in diabetic acidosis, raising CO2 might make it worse -so watch the effects, and don't do it more than makes you feel better.

Have you checked whether your diet - current and previous - was supplying adequate potassium? Without that, sugar is hard to burn, too.

 

[natedawggh]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/95446/ Whatever "Peating" is, I obviously did it wrong.

Maybe I changed my diet too fast? I never ate or drank sugar my whole adult life, or drank milk, or ate fruit. Then, last November, I started with this WOE. Started drinking milk, eating fruit, using sugar in my coffee, having a Red Bull or Coke now and then (never more than one a day, though). Then around April/May, I started getting symptoms of high blood sugar. It was pretty bad, like around 500 for awhile. I didn't want to go the traditional route of doctors and insulin. I tried to deal with it on my own, by using all the things I've read about that are supposed to help, like mega-dosing aspirin, B-vitamins, and other things I'm forgetting. None of that stuff made much difference. I ended up in the emergency room (husband and daughter dragged me there) because of constant vomiting. They gave me a prescription for Metformin, and I have been taking that. It didn't lower the numbers, but it did somehow make me feel much better. I want to get off of it, though. I have lowered my fasting BG from 363 to 160 over the past 6 days, by cutting all carbs. No sugar, no starch at all. I'm so relieved that it's coming down so fast!

I'm just wondering how it went so wrong for me, yet you all seem to be able to handle all this sugar and not have any problems with blood glucose. A naturopathic doctor who I've seen a couple of times recently told me that she sees this a lot in women over 50? (I'm 52). No diabetes in my family, but I have always had problems with LOW blood sugar in the past.

So I guess I'm just putting this out there as a cautionary tale -- might be wise to take it slow as far as changing one's diet, and maybe adding sugary food/drink is not such a great idea for some people.

I still love Ray, and have learned so much from him, and from all of you, and will continue to follow most of the dietary guidelines, but the whole sugar thing didn't work out for me at all.

Uh, it sounds like you already had diabetes before you started increasing your sugar intake. If you hadn't already had diabetes you would have digested the sugar just fine. I eat tons of sugar every day for the last 18 months and have not only not developed diabetes, but I've lost weight and increased my metabolism.

You have to improve your thyroid function. Are you on thyroid meds? Those would help. Also this mushroom called Chaga can basically relieve diabetes while it's in your body. Try some of that (one dose has a very large effect so you don't need to take more than 1 a day). Its very effective so be careful of your sugar levels if you take it until you know how it affects you. Caffeine, B vitamins, and calcium can all also improve your sugar metabolism.

 

[artemis]

Your analogy is brilliant, tara! Thank you.

I do a little bag-breathing (maybe once a day), I need to do it more often.

Potassium showed fine on bloodwork. I'm a little worried about keeping it up if I continue to eat this way, though.

You have to improve your thyroid function. Are you on thyroid meds?

I take about 1/4 Cynoplus in the morning and the same at night. Pulse is fine, temps are still low. Think it may be time to increase it.

Thanks for the info on the Chaga mushrooms, natedawwgh. I had never heard of it before. May give it a try.

 

[XPlus]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/95604/
Hi, XPlus, thanks for your thoughts on this. I have always been hypothyroid. I'm now taking a little cynoplus morning and night (1/4 to 1/2). Like many here, I got off to a rocky start with it back in January when I first started experimenting with it. Mainly high resting pulse rate during the day, even from the smallest crumb of cynoplus. I have never been able to get my hands on any "real" T3, so I've only experimented with the cynoplus. I stopped taking it completely in February due to my high resting pulse rate...yet the high heart rate continued. I only recently started taking it again (about a month ago?), out of desperation to get my blood glucose down. I seem to be doing OK with it this time -- afternoon heart rate staying in the 80's as opposed to the 120's to 130's like before. Temperature stays low, though (96's and 97's), both before and now. So I'm thinking about increasing my dose a little.

As far as digestion, it seems to be fine. No issues that I'm aware of. Same with liver function. No other health problems.

Hi artemis,
Hope you're doing well.

The only thing I'd suggest is to focus mainly on your hypothyroidism, for now.
Better sugar tolerance will come along.
Slowly build up your tolerances as well as food intake and supplements. This includes thyroid and sugar.
I've noticed that you use quite few supplements. Are you sure you need all of them and none is actually doing more harm than good.
Knock it down to the basics.
Start with food and see which ones make you feel better. Slowly try more of different things and see how you feel.
Same for supplements, play with one thing at a time. Build up from small doses slowly over weeks. So you'd give yourself a chance to observe the effects of that one supplement.
Eventually, you'd be able to tell what works for you better than anyone else.

 

[sweetpeat]

Hi artemis
I hope things are getting better for you. You've gotten some good advice here, so I'll add just a couple of things that I noticed that haven't been mentioned yet.

I'm about the same age as you, also female. I also have a low carb background and worried about diabetes, which is why I went low carb in the first place (yikes!). I would guess that the reason so many females our age are having sugar issues is because of the estrogen burden on the liver. I went heavy on the carbs at first too after discovering Peat. Thankfully, I didn't have glucose issues as bad as yours, but did end up with elevated liver enzymes and high triglycerides. I've really focused on liver health the past 9 months, using a lot of the advice given through the forum, and believe it's made a difference in my metabolism.

I think you said your liver is fine (based on labs, I guess?) but chances are it's still overburdened due to the estrogen load and isn't able to handle the extra carbs just yet. It may also have trouble converting the t4 in Cynoplus into active t3. I know that Cynoplus also contains t3, but if you're taking ¼ pill at a time then you're getting more than 5mcg all at once. The body can only use no more than 5mcg per hour, so some of the t3 in the Cynoplus is being inactivated. To get the most out of the t3 and keep it as active as possible, I would suggest chopping the pill into 10ths or even 12ths. Then take those small pieces several times throughout the day, like you would if it was straight t3.

I would also suggest using topical supplements as much as possible, especially the hormonal ones (pregnenolone, dhea). This helps keep the burden off your liver as well.

And last, (but not least)...sunlight, sunlight, sunlight...

 

[charlie]

And last, (but not least)...sunlight, sunlight, sunlight...

:1 :1 :1

 

[artemis]

So much good advice here! Thanks, y'all, for checking up on me. I have been doing well. Still eating pretty much the same way. Low carb diets suck so bad! Like, I just don't want any more meat or eggs or cheese, ya know? But it's keeping my numbers down (135 today), so I'm sticking with it for now. I have added in some carbs in the form of watermelon this week, seem to be doing OK with it. I do eat something every few hours.

My first appointment with the naturopathic doctor is next week. As I said, she does follow Peat, so this should be interesting. From what I've gathered from our phone conversations, the way I'm eating now is OK as a short-term fix, but what inevitably happens is that after about 6 months or so, the blood glucose starts spiking after eating anything, even no carb stuff. THEN what do you do? So she focuses on retraining the body to use the sugar.

Will keep y'all posted!

 

[montmorency]

So much good advice here! Thanks, y'all, for checking up on me. I have been doing well. Still eating pretty much the same way. Low carb diets suck so bad! Like, I just don't want any more meat or eggs or cheese, ya know? But it's keeping my numbers down (135 today), so I'm sticking with it for now. I have added in some carbs in the form of watermelon this week, seem to be doing OK with it. I do eat something every few hours.

My first appointment with the naturopathic doctor is next week. As I said, she does follow Peat, so this should be interesting. From what I've gathered from our phone conversations, the way I'm eating now is OK as a short-term fix, but what inevitably happens is that after about 6 months or so, the blood glucose starts spiking after eating anything, even no carb stuff. THEN what do you do? So she focuses on retraining the body to use the sugar.

Will keep y'all posted!

Well done @Artemis for speaking up for yourself. I'm frankly shocked at the way a minority of responders have taken it upon themselves to question your word and generally preach at you. Says more about them than you IMO. Peat isn't "authoritarian", but some of his followers are. I'm not clear why all the fuss about meat in this thread. After all, Peat himself eats meat, e.g. I heard an interview in which a phone-in caller asked what he'd eaten that day, and he said it was "one of his steak days". He also recommends cheese and eggs in moderation. You just have to balance the meat protein with gelatin, and of course not have too much of it.

Good luck with the naturopathic doctor and good luck generally! :)

 

[New_to_Peat]

I am not overweight. If anything, I am a little underweight. I'm 5'8", 132 pounds. I have big bones (really!), big hands and feet, so I appear kind of bony.

Well then I'm speechless. I've never seen any clinical data on people who have a normal BMI and also have type 2 diabetes. You're a rare breed indeed.

It happens. I'm in a similar situation, though not nearly as severe. Pre-diabetic male, 5'10", currently 135 lbs. I've probably averaged 150-200 carbs most of my life (primarily from fruit, milk, and grains), PUFA's have been under 4% of calories for the last year. I did (or do) have Lyme Disease, which may be throwing things off, but my A1C's been at the border of pre-diabetes for the last five years despite my very low weight. Whether I'm not producing enough insulin, or just insulin-resistant, I don't know, since several doctors have refused to do the testing to find out because I'm not officially diabetic. I plan to experiment with a low fat, high carb diet sometime soon to see how my glucose responds.

 

[artemis]

Well done @Artemis for speaking up for yourself. I'm frankly shocked at the way a minority of responders have taken it upon themselves to question your word and generally preach at you.

Thanks for mentioning this, montmorency. I was pretty shocked, too. I can't believe more attention hasn't been called to this. I was even thinking that maybe this was not the place for me after all, if that kind of thing is considered acceptable.

And thanks for the good wishes. I'm really trying to get better!

 

[lindsay]

I'm curious if you have taken the Triyotex yet, and if so, how has it been for you? My Cytomel is running low, as is my Cynoplus. I've tried to come off both and manage to do quite well on very little thyroid these days, but if I'm experiencing any stubborn estrogen symptoms, both of these help and now they are no longer available Would love to hear your thoughts of Triyotex and see where you purchased it? I found it on The Mexican Pharma.

Thanks in advance!