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Comment by kylell | Hacker News Reader

Yes, sorry, I was thinking at type-2 diabetes, I have a relative with type-2 and doctor told her to cut alcohol, sugar, carbs, etc, type-1 is entirely different, the immune system attacks the pancreas.

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Thanks for the apology, but you got me quite irritated with your first comment. It was like saying to a paraplegic in a wheelchair to man up and hit the gym because there is only so much you can do with a wheelchair... Dreadful.

Just to add a bit of a positive spin on this: even type-1 diabetics could take measures to both improve their health and reduce the amount of insulin they require.

I consider myself moderately overweight at this point (maybe 10-15kg). If I lost weight, I could reduce the baseline amount of insulin I need every day, thus reducing the amount of insulin overall that I need to pay for.

I also fully acknowledge that, upon getting an insulin pump (16 years ago), I instantly became aware that I had much more freedom to eat what I want, when I wanted and thus, put little effort to cutting back on sugar outside of switching to diet drinks. If I were to switch to a low-carb diet, or no carb (which is admittedly very hard, I've tried), I could further reduce my insulin costs.

Personally (keep in mind these numbers depend highly on each individual), if I got my weight down 10kg, and ate < 100g of carbohydrates per day, I could theoretically only require ~35-40 units of insulin per day. At 40 units, I would only need ~1.35 vials of insulin per month. Ballparking, I'd say my current rate is likely around 2 vials per month.

You still need to have carbs in your diet, it wouldn't be healthy otherwise. Especially if you practice a sport.

I eat whatever I want (mostly pasta usually) and I need 20 units a day at most. (100 units/ml dosage).

There's no dietary or metabolic need for carbohydrate. The human body can survive and thrive perfectly well with only fat and protein as macronutrients. Practically speaking, doing that is challenging and complicated because most foods are a mix of all three macronutrients.

But do you need sugar? Or you don't need either sugar nor carbs? It seems strange to me. EDIT: it seems that if you use only your fat, you'll end up producing too much Ketones which leads to Ketoacidosis. Doesn't sound good.

No, ketosis doesn't lead to ketoacidosis unless you completely neglect to manage your insulin.

Ketosis is perfectly healthy. You are very confused.

Doctors Phinney and Volek would disagree on the carbs/sport connection.

Then they should come with an explanation as to why I want to throw up and can't do anything when doing sport with no insulin to use my carbs.

I think the reasoning goes because you are used to using carbs as your energy source most of the time, your body doesn't know what to do at first when it doesn't have any available. The body adapts surprisingly well to different energy sources, so if you drop all carbs, your body will burn fat for energy and create ketones.

It kinda sounds crazy, and I used to think it was, but I'm currently low carb to lose weight (lost 28 pounds in 3 months with it so far!). It just takes a couple weeks of training while on the diet to get your body to catch on and be back to your usual performance.

There are actually a surprising number of world records set by athletes on low carb diets who destroyed previous records that claim their diet is the main reason they were able to accomplish their goals

No you don't.

Source: The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Phinney and Volek

This is patently untrue.

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