Diabetes, Insulin and Peat Plan Adjustments

MrMoose63

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I am a Type 2 Diabetic, that went DKA in December(NOT fun, I don't recommend). Now I am on 130 units (70units Levemir, 20 x 3 units of Humalog) of insulin/day to cover a measly 180grams (60/meal) of carbohydrates. Based on that how would you change your interpretation of a Peat Diet.

Would more fructose be even better as it can be processed primarily without the use of insulin? Important to decrease starch?

I would love to hear your ideas. I know Ray Peat doesn't like the use of insulin to treat diabetes, but has anyone ever seem him comment on how to deal with it if a client is already on copious amounts of it?

Given my circumstance what guidelines would provide the biggest bang for the buck?

What kind of things would you tinker with? I'm all for experimentation, so I can learn my body better.

I seem to be able to eat ~60grams of starch carbs and an additional 30g carbs of fruit on the same 20 units of Humalog that I would require just for the 60grams of starch.
 

cliff

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I would try getting most of your carbs from ripe fruit and milk. Aspirin and niacianamide in moderate doses would be a good idea.
 

jaguar43

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I agree with cliff. Also elimination of vegetable oils is crucial in diabetes. Coconut oil use is important. Great lakes gelatin as well.

Not sure if you read this article but ray peat talks about diabetes.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/diabetes.shtml

He talks about how his father lived on brewers yeast for two weeks and recovered completely. Brewers yeast is high in b vitamins so maybe supplement with some b vitamins or eating iiver once a week.
 

frustrated

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MrMoose63 said:
I am a Type 2 Diabetic, that went DKA in December(NOT fun, I don't recommend). Now I am on 130 units (70units Levemir, 20 x 3 units of Humalog) of insulin/day to cover a measly 180grams (60/meal) of carbohydrates. Based on that how would you change your interpretation of a Peat Diet.

Would more fructose be even better as it can be processed primarily without the use of insulin? Important to decrease starch?

I would love to hear your ideas. I know Ray Peat doesn't like the use of insulin to treat diabetes, but has anyone ever seem him comment on how to deal with it if a client is already on copious amounts of it?

Given my circumstance what guidelines would provide the biggest bang for the buck?

What kind of things would you tinker with? I'm all for experimentation, so I can learn my body better.

I seem to be able to eat ~60grams of starch carbs and an additional 30g carbs of fruit on the same 20 units of Humalog that I would require just for the 60grams of starch.

I would be interested to see, in real time, how someone with diabetes does introducing some of the thing's Ray mentions. Please keep us updated.

I would do what Cliff suggests. If you eat starch have some orange juice with it to keep endotoxin low.
 

Asimov

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Aside from the things you already know to do (avoid PUFA, increase SFA) and the things your doctor is having you do, there is a good amount of evidence that oxidative damage driven by high serum iron levels is causal in metabolic syndrome and T2DM. Frequent blood draws (to remove iron) vitamin C and E consumption (to scavenge free electrons and stop the perioxidative reactions from spreading) and copper consumption (to block iron absorption) are great methods to ameliorate the damage caused by iron.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of clinical evidence that high carbohydrate consumption is beneficial for people with metabolic disease. Simply put, there's few good sources of exclusively fructose. These uber-ripe bananas everyone is espousing don't readily exist. Brown/black bananas tend to get thrown away. Everything else has such high starch content that the benefit of consuming the fructose is over-ridden by the stress of your body jacking up insulin to process the glucose.

The sole exception that I've seen to this is honey. By all regards, you can probably consume as much honey as you can stomach and it will probably benefit your T2DM and drive DOWN your blood glucose levels. So if you need sweet, go for honey. Otherwise, stick to eggs, butter, coconut oil, organ meat, and occasional muscle meat (regarding the iron issues) and you'll see massive benefits. Basically....you'll probably be best to go low carb....

*puts on flame proof suit*
 

cliff

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Asimov what you say isn't true, it's extremely easy to get fruits without starch. Orange, grape and cherry juice are usually easy to find. You can ripen bananas yourself? What about white sugar? Does that have starch too? haha

Going low carb is probably the stupidest thing you can do as it severly cuts your potassium intake and set offs a cascade of stress hormones and raises FFA's which promote insulin resistance. The diet youdescribe would be horribly deficient.
 

Asimov

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It's not just starch you have to worry about. It's ANY carb that isn't specifically fructose. Fructose is the only carbohydrate that doesn't require insulin to be processed metabolically. If you can absorb PURE fructose, then you'll be OK. Orange, grape, and cherry juice are RIFE with non-fructose sugars. Unfortunately I can't find pure fructose anywhere.

You're talking about the potassium intake as if it's insurmountable problem on a low carb diet. Fish and avocados have huge levels of potassium. Or you can just take potassium...

There's no evidence that low carbohydrate diets promote pathological insulin resistance. Ketone production that's induced by low carbohydrate diets is strongly protective of normal metabolic function, allowing non-pathological insulin utilization once carbohydrate consumption resumes. Beta-hydroxybyutyrate production is likely the most protective energy source to normalized human metabolic function, and it's one that can never be accessed while eating massive amounts of carbs, fructose or not.

You're throwing out the baby with the bath water here. Diabetes is the OP's primary problem...not lack of potassium or FFA. He needs to fix his faulty metabolism centering on inefficient use of insulin PRIMARILY and ideally get OFF insulin. Then he can go back and readjust his diet once he's off insulin (an extremely damaging stress hormone it's self). But first....let's focus on metabolic problems.

And as I said...the best way to do that is consume non-carbs AND/OR pure fructose (which is very difficult to find) AND/OR honey.
 
OP
MrMoose63

MrMoose63

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Very interesting discussion, I appreciate the feedback.

Asimov, as a little background I have attempted a low carbohydrate diet in the past (prior to the insulin) and while it was more Aktinesque, my blood sugar would still hover around 200mg/dl. It was also one of the hardest diets I had ever tried and unfortunately compliance, long term, is not something I could reasonably pull off.

Iron, I have read about how it can cause all kinds of issues, however in my most recent blood test it was within the reference range (that's assuming it would be relavant). Also, traditionally (unless extremely well controlled) I understand most facilities would not accept my blood donation because of my glucose levels.

On my current regimen and all of this insulin I know I am experiencing a high rate of stress. Since December when I went DKA I have been waking up all too frequently during 2-4am, and I do experience the dawn phenomenon with the large increase in fasting glucose each morning.

Over the next few days I will be doing some testing with a higher percentage of fruit. I am already taking in 650mg of aspirin/day and historically I didn't notice any glucose related benefits to Niacinamide (even up to 3g/day). Milk may be a problem in that liquids generally don't seem to satiate me too well. Perhaps I'll up the Milk but throw in some Cheese as well.
 

Asimov

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Of course I don't know what your pre-atkins glucose readings are, 200mg/dl would be an improvement for many diabetics. However if compliance is untenable, then the best diet on earth for your particular ailment is moot.

However, like I said, the evidence is very strong that, no matter how little carbs one is consuming, high iron levels are still going to be the main driver on metabolic disease. I can't say that your iron levels are high or low, just that frequent phlebotomy has shown to play a HUGE factor in reducing the disease.

High glucose isn't necessarily a fail on a blood donation. I think their criteria is "as long as it's controlled" meaning if you can get it down, whether via insulin injections or natural, they'll allow you to donate (assuming of course hemoglobin and BP are within range). Here's a little forum read about the subject, most responses are pretty positive. Disclaimer: I'm not diabetic and I've never tried to donate blood as a diabetic, but blood banks are pretty hard up for the red stuff. I'd imagine they'll give you a shot.

http://www.diabetesdaily.com/forum/type ... d-diabetic

As I said, there's a good chance that adding honey into your diet, especially to fulfill sweet tooth urges, will greatly increase your blood glucose control over similar sweet snacks containing a mix of sucrose and fructose (ie: almost every fruit in existence and especially sweet, ripe fruits.)
 

kettlebell

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Hi Asimov,

Why Honey instead of fruit? Thats a combination of Sucrose and Fructose right? Is it almost 50:50 like most fruits?

Im just curious.

Thanks.
 

cliff

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Asimov there is plenty of evidence that excessively high levels of FFA(which happens when you don't eat carbs) causes insulin resistance. You can just look at long term low carbers fasting glucose which tends to be high and most low carbers can't pass a OGTT. Not to mention the dramatic negative effect it has on thyroid hormone.

Fish isn't that high in potassium and avocado are full of PUFA. Not to mention all the nutrients you are deficient in eating just refined oil, eggs and organ meat.

Kettlebells right too regarding the sugar composition of honey, your more likely to find untolerable stuff in honey than most well strained fruits juices so I don't get it?

You should go back and read peat's articles he doesn't believe in doing some band aid fix(which in my opinion won't work) and than switching your diet to promote metabolism, that's retarded. Taking thyroid, pregenelone, aspirin, niacianamide, coconut oil, eating liver, eating very small but frequent meals and getting at least 200g of carbs from fruit/milk with adequate protein/nutrients to promote oxidative metabolism and lower stress hormones is a much safer way to "fix his metabolism"(who are you jimmy moore?)
 

Asimov

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kettlebell said:
Hi Asimov,

Why Honey instead of fruit? Thats a combination of Sucrose and Fructose right? Is it almost 50:50 like most fruits?

Im just curious.

Thanks.
Well, the simple answer is that honey is sucrose and fructose (just like all fruits) but it's also 180ish other things as well. Going along with Ray Peat's ideas on non-reductionism, the only thing I can say is that the combination of those 182 things improves glucose tolerance in diabetics much more so than a similar mixture of sugars in fruits (and much much more so than straight consumption of non-fructose containing carbohydrates). This is the conclusion that I've reached after reading 80ish studies on the subject. I'm not smart enough to know exactly the mechanism at action there, but I'm smart enough to recite what the much smarter researchers than myself have revealed :)

And to Cliff, obviously I wasn't writing a meal plan when I wrote "eggs, butter, coconut oil, organ meat and muscles meat". I'm giving a 2 second overview of what a low carb diet would look like. Take my abbreviated dietary plan with a grain of salt. Anything that keeps you under 50ish grams of carbs a day is going to work.

And no...Cliff, there's no evidence that low carbohydrate diets cause PATHOLOGICAL insulin resistance. The reason that people on VLC diets have higher blood glucose levels is a specific physiological response to the induced dietary pressures. The tissues become insulin resistant in order to spare glucose for the brain (precisely where it's needed the most). If you were consuming low amounts of carbohydrates, and your muscles were still demanding a high amount of sugar to power their basic tasks, you would quickly become hypoglycemic and put yourself at risk. Simply put, your body recognizes the lack of carbs and flips the switch to allow your cells to metabolize fat, saving precious sugar for the brain.

Once you go off a low carb diet (as I'm suggesting the OP do after he weans himself from insulin) his tissues will become resensitized to the insulin signal to consume glucose. It's precisely this peripheral insulin resistance in muscle tissues during low carb diets that protects against pathological insulin resistance when carbs are reintroduced. The diet does a good job of re-teaching the body how to properly metabolize glucose and give preference to the tissues that have the strongest need for glucose. There's not one piece of research that indicates that a human's adaptive insulin resistance will remain post-VLC diet. It just doesn't happen...their blood glucose readings ALWAYS go down.

When we're discussing markers like like blood glucose, you have to remember, it's just a simple snapshot of what's happening inside the body. It may tell us something important at the moment, but there's lots of possible explanations and the trend over time is the most important factor. If you are really willing to get your blood glucose down at all costs, I can show you tons of studies that prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that PUFA intake lowers BG more than SFA........of course....this isn't what the original poster wants. He wants to get his BG levels under control (so he doesn't die immediately), get off insulin (so he doesn't die chronically), and then get healthy (so he can live an actualized life). I suspect this is his order of priorities, and I've given him advice based upon that.

I think there's plenty of honest room for discussion when it comes to diet and biology, but your use of debate efforts such as calling my ideas "stupid" and "retarded" make me think I'm wasting my time debating a 10th grader who's read all of Ray Peat's articles and has too much time on his hands. If you want to address the points, feel free. I won't waste my time on someone who not only lacks a fundamental understanding of biology (which, is fine) but is also a rude know-it-all ***hole. The combination isn't cute.
 

cliff

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You are wasting your time I'm already convinced going on a low carb diet is ******* retarded(sorry for my language haha).

What 80 studies have shown honey is superior to fruit? what fruits?

Your explanation of how low carb works is classic gary taubes woo woo bull****, you seem like a genuine guy but that's bull crap. Low carbers become intolerant to everything, especially carbs. We don't need studies when we have real life, just open your eyes haha. I'm sure that next you telled me the lowered thyroid hromone is an adaptation and beneficial, ala rosedale hahahaha
 

cliff

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By the way if you want an ubiased look at your low carb woo woo check out carbsanes blog. Maybe I lack a fundamental understanding of biology? but I don't just parot what others say without having any idea what it actually means or if it's even true :wink:
 

jaguar43

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Also another thing that seem important is your hormonal levels. Any chance of getting blood work done in the near time future ?
 

Asimov

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cliff said:
You are wasting your time I'm already convinced going on a low carb diet is ******* retarded(sorry for my language haha).

What 80 studies have shown honey is superior to fruit? what fruits?

Your explanation of how low carb works is classic gary taubes woo woo bull****, you seem like a genuine guy but that's bull crap. Low carbers become intolerant to everything, especially carbs. We don't need studies when we have real life, just open your eyes haha. I'm sure that next you telled me the lowered thyroid hromone is an adaptation and beneficial, ala rosedale hahahaha
:? :? :?

I'm sure any rational observer can read your posts and read mine and make their own decisions as to whom has a firmer grasp on understanding of biology (not to mention etiquette, tact, or just plain intelligence).

Here's some "real life" for ya

http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/B ... all-study/

Read the 50 or comments of diabetics saying "I went low carb, hba1c dropped X points, got off insulin". Go there and tell them how ******* retarded they are.
 

frustrated

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Nonetheless, tentatively, I would recommend, in no particular order, to (1) supplement with vitamin B1 (cofactor of the PDH complex) and (2) magnesium (helps retain ATP in the cell), (3) eat sugar as in fruit in preference to starches as in grains and tubers, (3) reduce excess body fat if you have it, and replace it with muscle, which serve as sinks for free fatty acids, (4) reduce the fat in the diet and replace them with carbohydrates and protein, keeping calories more or less the same (I’ve found, and every dieter knows, that the loss of muscle occurs long before the fat stores become depleted, which is why carbohydrates are superior to fat during periods of weight loss, as carbohydrates are strongly anabolic), (5) opt for small meals over large ones in order to maintain steadier blood glucose levels over the course of a day, and (6) de-stress as much as possible by, for instance, getting into the habit of creating and writing down plans for how you will get an A on an upcoming exam, cope with a major life change, complete a paper, win an argument, etc. This can be more powerful than executing the plan itself…it has been for me at least.1

http://www.andrewkimblog.com/2013/03/di ... ctive.html
 

cliff

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Asimov said:
Read the 50 or comments of diabetics saying "I went low carb, hba1c dropped X points, got off insulin". Go there and tell them how ******* retarded they are.

I'm sure anonymous internet comments are what we should base our conclusions on. Those people are ******* retarded, you and them don't get why low carb works in the short term. Here's a pro-tip, your eating barely any carbs hahaha. It won't help you ever be able to eat more carbs, the opposite actually. I guarantee most of those "50 commenters" can't pass a OGTT.

Still waiting on those 80 studies that show honey is superior to fruits, that's pretty important info :lol:
 

charlie

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Just because you are starving yourself of sugar(low carb) and blood sugar levels go down does not mean you "cured" your diabetes. It means you are starving yourself of sugar. :2cents
 

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