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> Much of this contradicts my N=1 experience. > I'm afraid this myth buster needs some of her myths busted.

I don't see anything you've written than contradicts the article author?

If you don't take insulin before a dessert, then of-course it will take days to get your sugars back to normal. That's a reason to take insulin if you can/want, not necessarily a reason to avoid sugars.

The author doesn't assert that too many sweets give you diabetes. Only that there are a complex set of factors, among which are sweets. The myth here is that it's as simple as "too many sweets give you diabetes".

There is an enormous range of experiences covered by diabetes 1 and 2. It's no surprise that general myth busting doesn't tally exactly with N=1 individuals, especially someone who has made such an extreme change to their diet to manage their sugars.

The article really should be titled, "Myths about Type 1 Diabetes." I don't think it contradicts your experience, it just doesn't focus on Type 2.

My N=1 experience. When I was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes around 20 years ago, all it took was a couple prescriptions for common diabetes pills to keep it under excellent control despite me not really making any significant dietary changes. But eventually that stopped working.

Here were some A1c numbers about 15 years in, at which point I was on four different diabetes pills and most of those at fairly high doses:

  2014-12-12 7.8
  2015-03-13 8.9
  2015-06-18 8.2
  2015-09-18 8.1

That was when I made a dietary change. Like you, I went for less carbs, but not anywhere near to the extent you did. Results:

  2015-12-16 5.9
  2016-03-11 5.5
  2016-06-06 5.3
  2016-09-07 5.2
  2016-12-08 5.0
  2017-03-03 5.1
  2017-06-12 5.0
  2017-09-08 4.8
  2018-03-13 5.0

During that my doctor reduced the dosage of all my diabetes medicines, and the last four of those are with no diabetes medicine at all.

My "low carb" was simply to try to keep carbs below 40% of calories. Astronomically high compared to your goal, but quite a bit lower than the average American diet.

For 2016, I ended up averaging 2200 calories a day, which came from 185 g carbs (34%) and 126 g proteins (23%).

2017 was 33% carbs, 25% proteins. 2018 was 36%/23% carbs/proteins.

I'd recommend that people eat what the normally do for a while before making a diet change and keep a record of everything eaten. Look up the nutritional information on it all, and figure out what percent of calories are from carbs.

If like many people that is 60% or more, I'd recommend trying a cut to 40% first before trying a cut to something very low. 40% should be a lot easier for most people to actually stick with.

40% can reasonably be reached without cutting out whole categories of food. Even if you mostly eat at fast food places, 40% can be achieved at those places reasonably. 40% is also easy to check on the nutritional information: take calories, divide by 10, and cast that result to grams. If the number of carbs is above that, more than 40% of calories are from carbs.

"Yes too many sweets can give you diabetes."

Someone just reading your comment here might not realize that the article has a reasonably nuanced discussion of this.

I don't think it's very nuanced.

The paragrpah in question is:

The story for Type 2 diabetes is a bit more complicated. Obesity and inactivity play huge roles in the risk for the disease, but genetics are also a factor, even more so than for Type 1. "

If you go to the link she references, theres a lot of statistics about gentic factors on Type 1, but very little in Type 2.

Type 1 has:

"If you are a man with type 1 diabetes, the odds of your child developing diabetes are 1 in 17. If you are a woman with type 1 diabetes and your child was born before you were 25, your child's risk is 1 in 25; if your child was born after you turned 25, your child's risk is 1 in 100.

Your child's risk is doubled if you developed diabetes before age 11. If both you and your partner have type 1 diabetes, the risk is between 1 in 10 and 1 in 4.

There is an exception to these numbers. About 1 in every 7 people with type 1 diabetes has a condition called type 2 polyglandular autoimmune syndrome. In addition to having diabetes, these people also have thyroid disease and a poorly working adrenal gland. Some also have other immune system disorders. If you have this syndrome, your child's risk of getting the syndrome—including type 1 diabetes—is 1 in 2."

And Type 2 has:

"Type 2 diabetes runs in families. In part, this tendency is due to children learning bad habits—eating a poor diet, not exercising—from their parents. But there is also a genetic basis."

It seems that Type 1 genetic factors are much more understood, and there is a correlation in Type 2.

I feel like the article comingles Type 1 and Type 2 a bit too much. My understanding is that although symptoms/pathology is similar, treatments between the two are very different.

The pathology is quite different. In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas stops producing insulin. In Type 2, cells stop responding to it.

So insulin is a necessary component of treatment for Type 1, whereas the first line treatments for Type 2 improve cellular response to naturally produced insulin.

Fair enough, apoligies for poor wording!

accidentally funny response

I wonder have you tried something similar to the 200 calorie diet the NHS trialed a few years ago ?

I found this very interesting I just haven't seen or heard anyone trying it

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42154666 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47456418

Fasting has an extremely positive and rapid effect on my blood sugars. 200 calories isn't far from fasting.