Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: critical review and evidence base
Richard D Feinman 1, Wendy K Pogozelski 2, Arne Astrup 3, Richard K Bernstein 4, Eugene J Fine 5, Eric C Westman 6, Anthony Accurso 7, Lynda Frassetto 8, Barbara A Gower 9, Samy I McFarlane 10, Jörgen Vesti Nielsen 11, Thure Krarup 12, Laura Saslow 13, Karl S Roth 14, Mary C Vernon 15, Jeff S Volek 16, Gilbert B Wilshire 17, Annika Dahlqvist 18, Ralf Sundberg 19, Ann Childers 20, Katharine Morrison 21, Anssi H Manninen 22, Hussain M Dashti 23, Richard J Wood 24, Jay Wortman 25, Nicolai Worm 26
Affiliations
Affiliations
- Department of Cell Biology, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA. Electronic address: richard.feinman@downstate.edu.
- Department of Chemistry, State University of New York Geneseo, Geneseo, NY, USA.
- Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Copenhagen University, Denmark.
- New York Diabetes Center, Mamaroneck, NY, USA.
- Department of Radiology (Nuclear Medicine), Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA.
- Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.
- Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
- Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
- Departments of Medicine and Endocrinology, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
- Karlshamn, Sweden.
- Department of Endocrinology I, Bispebjerg University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA.
- Private Practice, Lawrence, KS, USA.
- Department of Human Sciences (Kinesiology Program) Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
- Mid-Missouri Reproductive Medicine and Surgery, Columbia, MO, USA.
- Hälsocentralen Centrum, Sundsvall, Sweden.
- Private Practice, Malmö, Sweden.
- Private Practice, Lake Oswego, OR, USA.
- Ballochmyle Medical Group, Mauchline, East Ayrshire, Scotland, UK.
- Metabolia Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
- Faculty of medicine, Department of Surgery, Kuwait university, Kuwait.
- Springfield College, Springfield, MA, USA.
- First Nations Division, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
- German University for Prevention and Health Care Management, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Abstract
The inability of current recommendations to control the epidemic of diabetes, the specific failure of the prevailing low-fat diets to improve obesity, cardiovascular risk, or general health and the persistent reports of some serious side effects of commonly prescribed diabetic medications, in combination with the continued success of low-carbohydrate diets in the treatment of diabetes and metabolic syndrome without significant side effects, point to the need for a reappraisal of dietary guidelines. The benefits of carbohydrate restriction in diabetes are immediate and well documented. Concerns about the efficacy and safety are long term and conjectural rather than data driven. Dietary carbohydrate restriction reliably reduces high blood glucose, does not require weight loss (although is still best for weight loss), and leads to the reduction or elimination of medication. It has never shown side effects comparable with those seen in many drugs. Here we present 12 points of evidence supporting the use of low-carbohydrate diets as the first approach to treating type 2 diabetes and as the most effective adjunct to pharmacology in type 1. They represent the best-documented, least controversial results. The insistence on long-term randomized controlled trials as the only kind of data that will be accepted is without precedent in science. The seriousness of diabetes requires that we evaluate all of the evidence that is available. The 12 points are sufficiently compelling that we feel that the burden of proof rests with those who are opposed.
Keywords: Carbohydrate; Diabetes; Hemoblobin A(1c); Ketogenic diet; Low-carbohydrate diet; Triglyceride.
References
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/