What is Diabetes and Why Does It Happen?
November is American Diabetes Month, so let’s dive into how a low-carb diet can make a big difference in managing and preventing diabetes by stabilizing blood sugar and supporting overall health.
What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a condition where your body struggles to manage blood sugar levels. Normally, when you eat, your body breaks down food into glucose (sugar), which goes into your bloodstream. The hormone insulin helps your body move glucose from the blood into cells for energy or storage. For people with diabetes or prediabetes, either your body doesn’t make enough insulin, or it becomes resistant to insulin, leading to high blood sugar. Over time, high blood sugar can damage various organs and increase the risk of heart disease, nerve damage and more.
INFLAMMATION
Key Risk Factors to Watch For
Here are a few markers that can indicate a higher risk of diabetes and related conditions:
- High triglycerides: Triglycerides are a type of fat in the blood. High levels (above 150 mg/dL) can increase the risk of heart disease, especially in people with diabetes.
- Low HDL (good cholesterol): HDL helps remove excess cholesterol from your arteries, lowering your risk of heart disease. For better health, HDL levels should be above 50 mg/dL for women and above 40 mg/dL for men.
- High LDL (bad cholesterol): LDL can lead to plaque buildup in arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease. For people with diabetes or a high risk of heart disease, aiming for LDL levels below 100 mg/dL (or even 70 mg/dL for higher-risk individuals) is ideal.
- HbA1C: This blood test shows your average blood sugar levels over the past 2-3 months. A healthy HbA1C is below 5.7%, prediabetes is 5.7% to 6.4%, and diabetes is 6.5% or higher. It’s one of the best markers for long-term blood sugar control.
What is Metabolic Syndrome?
Metabolic Syndrome is a group of conditions that often appear together—high blood sugar, high triglycerides, low HDL and abdominal obesity. If you have three or more of these, it increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
How a Low-Carb Lifestyle Can Help
A low-carb lifestyle can be a powerful tool to help prevent and manage diabetes. Here’s how:
- Stabilizes blood sugar: Limiting carbohydrates reduces the amount of glucose entering your bloodstream, keeping blood sugar levels more stable and reducing the need for insulin.
- Improves insulin sensitivity: Reducing carb intake helps give your cells a break from being constantly bathed in insulin, so your body become more sensitive to insulin, making it more efficient at moving glucose from your bloodsteam into cells.
- Supports weight loss: Losing weight, especially around the belly, can reduce insulin resistance and help bring blood sugar levels down.
- Improves heart health markers: A low-carb lifestyle can improve triglycerides and HDL and LDL cholesterol, supporting overall heart health. These changes are crucial for people with diabetes, who are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
Science-Backed Support for Low Carb
Recent studies reinforce the benefits of a low carb approach when it comes to preventing and managing diabetes:
- A meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that cutting carbs significantly reduces cardiometabolic risk factors in people with type-2 diabetes.
- Another study published in BMJ showed that people with type-2 diabetes who followed a low-carb diet for six months had better blood sugar management than those on a low-fat diet.
- In a randomized trial published in JAMA Network Open, participants with prediabetes and mild diabetes who followed a low carb diet saw significant weight loss and HbA1C improvements, even when consuming more carbs than initially recommended.
- A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism examined the role of beta-cell function and diet. Beta cells in the pancreas help regulate blood sugars by producing insulin. In people with type-2 diabetes, the beta-cell response to glucose diminishes over time due to a combination of insulin resistance and excessive carb intake, which contributes to the progression of the disease. In this study, adults with mild type-2 diabetes were split into two groups: one followed a low carb, high-fat diet (9% carbs, 56% fat), while the other followed a higher carb, low-fat diet (55% carbs, 20% fat) over 12 weeks. Participants stopped diabetes medications for one to two weeks before starting. The results? The participants on the low-carb, high-fat diet had significant improvements in beta-cell response, which suggests that a low-carb, high-fat diet may offer to manage type-2 diabetes without the need for insulin.
These studies highlight how a low carb lifestyle can help prevent and manage diabetes effectively, often achieving results like or better than standard dietary guidelines.
Tips for Getting Started with a Low Carb Lifestyle
- Focus on whole foods: Choose nutrient-dense, whole foods like leafy greens, lean proteins, healthy fats (avocados and olive oil) and high-fiber vegetables.
- Watch for hidden and added sugars: Read labels to avoid hidden sugars, even in “healthy” foods like yogurt, fruit juices or granola bars.
- Prioritize protein and healthy fats: Protein and healthy fats keep you full longer and help manage blood sugar. Try to consume two to four 4- to 6-ounce servings of protein a day and three 1-tablespoon servings of added fat (such as olive oil, butter or salad dressing). This is in addition to the naturally occurring fat found in meat, poultry, eggs, nuts, dairy, and avocado.
- Monitor your numbers: Regularly monitor your blood sugar, cholesterol and HbA1C levels to see how lifestyle changes impact your health.
Adopting a low carb lifestyle can be your strategy for reducing the risk of diabetes or managing it more effectively if you’ve already been diagnosed. It can help stabilize blood sugar, improve key health markers and lower the risk of complications. Prevention (and nutrition) is key!
