Get control of your diabetes or even reverse it

Diabetes is a metabolic condition in which your body cannot properly process food for use as energy. Your body fails to break down glucose, in turn causing too much glucose in your blood. It’s when Metabolic Syndrome gets worse.

Type 1 diabetes is due to pancreas fails to make insulin.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin not working properly due to too much insulin in your body, i.e. insulin resistance.

Gestational diabetes happens in women when they are pregnant. Having had gestational diabetes increases your risk of type 2 diabetes later in life.

Pre-diabetes is when your glucose is higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. This can lead to type 2 diabetes if uncontrolled.

Diabetes is serious

Diabetes can be managed well but the potential complications can be severe, including heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, limb amputations, depression, anxiety, blindness.

Symptoms of diabetes

In type 1 diabetes, symptoms can be life-threatening. It is usually diagnosed quickly.

In type 2 diabetes, many people have no symptoms at all. Some can have non-specific symptoms including thirst, passing more urine, tiredness, lethargic, always feeling hungry, itchiness, skin infections, blurred vision, gradual weight gain, mood swings, headaches, leg cramps, dizziness. Type 2 diabetes is often diagnosed on a blood test through a check up with your doctor.

Managing your diabetes

Eat real food

All carbohydrates are digested to glucose, fructose and galactose
Carbohydrates cause insulin levels to rise
Chronic insulin levels cause increase growth in fat, hence more fat is stored
Insulin resistance is primarily caused by fat deposition in liver and muscles
To overcome glucose in the blood stream, the body produce more insulin
When glucose level rise excessively, insulin also converts glucose into fat, which exacerbates the problem, creating Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and further weight gain.
Hence diabetics should avoid carbohydrates as their body is unable to break it down.
Also avoiding carbohydrates can help reduce blood insulin and help it work better
It is also important to avoid processed food, often with high carbohydrates

Exercise

Exercise helps the insulin work more effectively. Cardiovascular exercise or weight lifting exercises all help to reduce blood glucose and improve insulin sensitivity. This has to be combined with dietary modification.

Medications

Sometimes healthy eating and exercises are unable to control diabetes. Regular monitoring is important. Regular blood glucose monitoring is important to help manage. It is also useful to find out what food raises your blood glucose and learn to avoid those foods.
You are likely to be referred to a diabetes educator to learn to about eating and how to monitor your blood glucose
Medications might be prescribed to control blood glucose or even injectable insulin as diabetes progresses.

You can control your diabetes or even reverse diabetes by controlling the amount of carbohydrate in your diet

Reversing diabetes is possible by reducing carbohydrate intake

For those with diabetes and those trying to lose weight, it is recommended that you eat no more than 50gm/day of carbohydrates, and for some it may be even less
Each person needs to find their level
For patients with diabetes, it is critical to regularly check their glucose levels before and after 90 minutes after meals to adjust insulin and medications accordingly. This may need to be done in conjunction with your doctor or diabetes educator

What food to eat

What foods to avoid (red list)

Avoid all sugars, sweets, confectionaries, breads, cereals and low fat foods. Low fat foods have added sugar to make them taste better. Avoid processed foods that come in a box or bottle. Fruits have good micronutrients but it does have lots of fructose and should be cut down or avoided. Vegetables that grow below ground is starchy and raises blood glucose and should be avoided or reduced.

What foods to eat (green list)

Eggs, meat, chicken, fish
Vegetables – leafy greens, above ground vegetables
Healthy fats – avocados, olive oil, coconut oil
Nuts
Dairy – unprocessed cheese, full cream milk, cream
Mushrooms
Berries or small amounts of fruit

How to monitor your glucose

By monitoring, diabetes patients can see what food does to their glucose levels, so they can adjust diets
“Diabetes is reversed one meal at a time”
Measure blood glucose before meal and 1 hour after meal
Higher Hba1c predicts more complications in diabetes, esp vascular complications

Blood glucose targets

Item	Value
Glucose spikes pre and post meals	Should be less than 1.7mmol/L
Max readings	< 8 mmol/L Average in non-diabetics < 7.8mmol/L
Pre-meal readings	< 6mmol Normal in non-diabetics is 4-5.6
Average glucose readings over 3 months (Hba1c)	<6.5mmol/L

Other check ups

Its important to see your doctor regularly to have a check up of your diabetes
Regular blood tests will check the control of your diabetes, cholesterol
Regular blood pressure checks
Don’t smoke
Eye check ups – regular visits to your optometrist or ophthalmologist is important
Foot care – podiatrists specialises in looking after your feet especially for diabetics
Regular vaccination – influenza injections available for diabetics under government subsidies.

Diabetes website links and videos

Here are some videos for you to learn about diabetes, reversing diabetes and learning to manage and reduce risk of complications.

How to reverse diabetes by Dr Jason Fung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekqq6DE8vGE

Information by the original Diet Doctor, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a2Fsfa8e4I

Ted Talk on Diabetes by Dr Sarah Hallberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ

Video by Low Carb Down Under DR Ron Schweitzer from Bentleigh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w8JMdy9nU0

Defeat Diabetes is a fabulous app by Dr Peter Brukner and Dr Paul Mason. There’s menu plans, recipes as well as resources section on the science behind the treatment of diabetes with low carb lifestyle.

Disclaimer

This article does not provide treatment or individual medical advice. Please see your own medical practitioner about change in lifestyle.

I am Dr Avi Charlton.
I have a special interest in nutrition and lifestyle medicine. I have done training with Low Carb Down Under and Nutrition Network.

You can contact me at
avi.charlton@gmail.com
www.dravicharlton.com
Follow me on Facebook or Instagram dr_charlton_low_carb_GP