14 Nov 2014 Type 2 Diabetes Does Not Happen Overnight
Deputy Chair of BANT, Sarah Green, says low carbohydrate diets should be the first treatment recommendation for diabetics.
Registered Nutritional Therapists recommend lower carbohydrate diets. Just as we have “good fats and bad fats” we have good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. Green leafy and non starchy, colourful vegetables are good carbohydrates. But starchy vegetables, grains and wholegrains (found in bread, pasta, cereal, cakes etc) are bad carbohydrates if you are overweight or obese. As our food becomes ever more processed and modified and our lives become more stressful and sedentary, late onset diabetes is manifesting younger and younger. We need to fundamentally change our approach.
Diabetes does not happen overnight. It happens over years of chronically raised blood sugar and insulin levels stemming from too much carbohydrate, increased stress levels, systemic inflammation and lack of exercise.
Nutritional guidelines which persist touting low fat foods as healthy are encouraging people to eat more carbohydrates. If you lower the % of fat in the diet, the % of carbohydrate will automatically increase. The science shows that a balance of good fats are anti-inflammatory and that essential fats improve insulin sensitivity. Not promoting and supporting people to increase their intake of good fats, higher protein and reduce carbohydrates (along with stress management and increased exercise) is contributing to the underlying pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes. Until we start to use this knowledge in a preventative way, T2D is going to continue to plague us as one of the biggest epidemics of our time and worse contribute to the statistic that this generation of children will not outlive their parents. The lack of focus on prevention is costing the NHS and taxpayer dearly.
