A new study suggests that following a strict low-carb, high protein diet could be extremely beneficial if you have type 1 diabetes. While most experts don’t recommend cutting carbs if you are a type 1 diabetic, the latest research suggests otherwise.
- Researchers found that very low-carb diets do not harm type 1 diabetes patients or push them into hypoglycemia.
- The diets could prove beneficial for both adults and children who live with the condition, researchers claim.
The findings appeared this week in the journal Pediatrics.
The observational study revealed that adults and children who adhered to a low-carb, high-protein diet for two years had “exceptional” blood sugar levels when compared to non-dieters. Study participants, though, still took insulin but at lower doses during the trial period.
Low-Carb, High Protein Diet Is ‘Extraordinarily Successful’
Also, the diet seems to have lowered those patients’ risk of complications while not stunting the growth of the children following the diet.
Their blood sugar control seemed almost too good to be true,
noted lead author Belinda Lennerz of the Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Lennerz insisted that such results have never been obtained with medication alone at the clinic.
In the study, researchers analyzed the health data on 316 type 1 diabetes patients. Of those, 130 were children. The patients or their parents were already part of TypeOneGrit, a Facebook group that promotes low-carb diets to treat type 1 diabetes.
Researchers found that the patients have been “extraordinarily successful” in their attempts to keep their diabetes in check with a very strict low-carb diet.
Dr. David M. Harlan, a diabetes expert at the UMass Memorial Medical Center, believes that the latest research offers evidence that a low carb diet is much safer for diabetes patients than many experts believe.
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