Keto Diet Low Blood Sugar – Carbohydrates, or carbs, raise blood sugar more than other foods, which means the body has to produce more insulin to digest them.
Reducing carbohydrate intake can help stabilize blood sugar. It may also counteract some of the other effects of diabetes, such as weight gain and heart disease.
But low-carb diets also carry some risks, including vitamin and mineral deficiencies. For some people, low-carb diets are difficult to maintain over time.
Learn more about a low-carb diet for people with diabetes in this article. People should remember to talk to a doctor before making any significant changes to their diet, especially those that affect diabetes management.
A person’s carbohydrate needs vary based on their activity level, weight, health goals, and other factors. Working with a doctor or dietitian can help people set specific carbohydrate goals.
A very low-carb diet contains only 30 grams (g) or less per day. Low-carb diets contain 130 g or less of carbohydrates, while moderate-carb diets contain 130 to 225 g of carbohydrates.
To get an idea of how significant a dietary change will be, people can try counting their daily carbohydrate intake for a few days and then set a new goal.
Another strategy that may be more sustainable is to slowly and steadily reduce your carbohydrate intake and see how your blood sugar levels change.
For example, a person can replace their morning toast with a hard-boiled egg and then slowly replace other carbohydrates with other nutrient-dense alternatives.
People following a very low-carb diet may want to limit their intake of fruit, as fruit also contains sugar. For most people, however, fruit is a healthy substitute for sugary snacks and processed foods.
Whole grain breads, lentils and beans are also high in carbohydrates, but they can be an important part of a healthy diet. Eat these foods in moderation or as a substitute for unhealthy carbohydrates such as cakes and pies.
When designing a low-carb meal plan, it’s helpful to know how many calories a person needs each day and stay within that range. Daily calorie intake varies depending on a person’s height, weight and activity level.
Variety can help make meals more enjoyable, so you may want to create a list of tasty low-carb options.
A low-carb diet can be one of the most effective diabetes management strategies, especially for people who can avoid medication.
Carbohydrates raise blood sugar more than any other food. For people with insulin resistance, blood sugar can remain high for hours after eating carbohydrates.
For people with type 1 diabetes who don’t produce enough insulin, carbohydrates can also cause blood sugar to rise, so a low-carb diet can help people with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Carbohydrates can also affect human health in other ways. Foods high in carbohydrates tend to be high in calories but low in some important nutrients, such as protein. Eating too many of these “empty calories” can lead to weight gain.
Shows that people who eat high-carbohydrate meals may also feel hungrier between meals, leading to overeating.
A person should talk to a doctor or dietitian if considering a low-carb diet to manage diabetes.
People on a low-carb diet can also eat too much protein, which can accelerate kidney damage if they already have kidney disease.
These risks may be due to eating too many processed protein sources, such as cold cuts and red meat. Limiting fruit and whole grains can also be problematic if a person is not getting enough fiber.
Some people struggle to stick to a low-carb diet long-term. Eating a low-carb diet can make some people feel hungry, moody, or have trouble concentrating.
Anyone who wants to try a low-carb diet to manage diabetes should talk to a doctor or dietitian first, as healthcare professionals can help ensure they’re getting all the nutrients they need.
A low-carb diet can help people with diabetes avoid complications. It can help keep blood pressure low, reduce energy drops, aid weight loss and even reverse the course of disease.
For people who want to avoid medication or whose doctor has recently diagnosed diabetes, a low-carb diet may be the first line of treatment.
Low-carb diets are not for everyone, as an unhealthy low-carb diet, such as living on fried, fatty meats, can be even more harmful to a person’s health than too many carbohydrates.
Likewise, a person must be able to stick to a low-carb diet long-term to fully reap its benefits.
Always talk to a doctor or nutritionist before trying any new diet. People can keep a log of their symptoms and what they eat to measure how diet affects their health over time.
Medical News Today has strict purchasing guidelines and sources only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We avoid using links from third parties. We link to primary sources, including studies, scientific references and statistics, within each article, and list them in the resources section below our articles. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and up-to-date by reading our editorial policy. This article on Low Carbs for Diabetes was written by Kelly Pounds and reviewed by Dr. Kathryn Crofts.
This is a guest expert article written by Kelly Pounds. Kelly is a Low Carb Diabetes Educator, Registered Nurse, Certified Diabetes Educator and Certified Insulin Pump Trainer to celebrate World Diabetes Day.
Medical denial. Before starting any diet, lifestyle or activity change, you must be under the supervision and care of your primary care provider. This article should not be construed as medical advice, nor should it be a substitute for medical advice from your healthcare provider. By continuing to read this article, you assume all responsibility and risk for establishing Lifestyle Management. If you are taking any medication, do not start a low-carb diet without a doctor’s supervision.
If you are new here, I suggest you download your FREE Diet Sheet of Easy Meals and Snacks for Beginners.
Many people with diabetes are confused by the conflicting nutritional advice they receive. And no wonder. The diet given to diabetic patients was extremely poor.
For decades, people with diabetes have been told to focus their diet on carbohydrates, and many have been advised to consume 250+ grams of carbohydrates per day.
No one needs to consume 250+ grams of carbs per day, let alone people who can’t process them efficiently: diabetics.
Eating that many carbohydrates a day would mean that a person would have to eat a lot of sugar or refined, processed foods. It would be extremely difficult to consume this amount of carbs while EATING REAL FOOD.
Also, many people are told that “calories from sugar can be replaced equally with other carbohydrates as part of a healthy balanced diet for diabetes.” In other words, you can skip the broccoli or the salad for an equal calorie serving of candy. Really?
This advice not only made diabetes worse and more difficult to manage, but also increased the risk of other chronic diseases such as kidney disease, heart disease, stroke and cancer, and contributed to blindness and amputations.
Because of the high correlation between type 2 diabetes and obesity (prediabetes and) people with type 2 diabetes are often told to eat a low-fat diet under the mistaken assumption that eating fat makes people fat. This could not be further from the truth.
That’s why low-carb diets consistently outperform low-fat diets in terms of weight loss, blood sugar control, and improvements in cardiovascular markers. (1, 2).
These facts are also confirmed by the American Diabetes Association. Consider these findings in their most recent position (3).
Low carbohydrates are important for people with type 2 diabetes who want to achieve normal blood sugar control, help achieve a healthy weight, and improve cardiovascular risk factors.
Low carbohydrates are important for diabetics who want to achieve stable blood sugar control. Click to tweet
Insulin resistance can become so severe that some people with type 2 can take hundreds and hundreds of units of insulin a day and still not achieve normal blood sugar levels.
The most effective, natural way to reverse insulin resistance is to follow a low-carb diet. Therefore, the need for insulin will decrease, insulin resistance can decrease and the body can heal.
Parents are advised to “just let the child eat like a ‘normal child’ and cover with insulin”. The blood sugar and A1c targets are then set high enough to ensure that the child does not suffer from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) from the HUGE doses of insulin needed for him to eat a standard American diet.
These high blood sugar and A1c targets leave those with type 1 open to chronically unstable blood sugar levels and severe diabetes-related complications.
A significant number of people with type 1 can also develop insulin resistance, as well as from high carbohydrate intake, which requires the use of large amounts of insulin.
Some people worry that eating fewer carbohydrates will put people with type 1 at risk or have more hypoglycemic episodes. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, those who use a low-carb method have much more stable blood sugar, some almost eliminating
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