Diet for a Type 2 Diabetic

My grandfather is a borderline type-2 diabetic, but has never been prescribed any meds. He has a serious sweet tooth and since he quit smoking 25 years ago and needless to say candy and cookies took over.

He’s 5’8 and about 214, I put him on a keto diet and in a week he dropped 6 pounds. He has a lot of health problems, but he began to feel much better, however about 10 days into the diet he collapsed, pretty much out of nowhere. The dietician in the hospital told him that he should be eating a high carb diet.

Now I have no formal nutritional education, but that seems absurd to me. As she was explaining this to me, her statement was as follows, “the effect on blood sugar after gluconeogenesis is less stable than that of carbohyrdate intake.”

I always thought that someone with type-2 diabetes should avoid carbohydrates and that through gluconeogenesis that person would be able to get the glucose they need, albeit much easier on the body.

Thoughts?

Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetics have about 3x the rate of hepatic gluconeogenesis as the “average” person. So that high protein diet is not the best thing for him. What he needs is a hypocaloric diet, that is about 40/30/20.
Start looking into metformin and see if he is a candidate. The main thing for him, is that he eat complex carbs that do not cause rapid increases in blood sugar.

Im assuming he has a glucometer? Tell him to check it more often. A keto diet is tough on the liver for a normal person add in the excess gluconeogenesis from the high protein/no carb diet and you spelled trouble for him from the beginning. Please next time research before executing a diet regimen. Is your grandfather a regular drinker? If so he might need to have his liver values tested.

Thanks for the reply, bro, I really appreciate the info. He does have a glucometer but isn’t very consistent with using it, as his doctor told him not to worry about it because his a1c test is good, so that technically he isn’t a type 2 diabetic. Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea.

With regards to your suggestion, I did some reading regarding keto/low carb diets beforehand and everything was positive. For example:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1325029

And the one thing I knew was an issue for him was his compulsive behavior, you give him a sandwich an he’ll eat a loaf of bread. The carbohydrates just don’t seem to keep him satiated the way the fats and protein do.

I guess maybe fats are the missing link in keeping him hungry and not craving more carbs. The ratio you posted seemed spot on, thanks again man for the help.

I have a lot of knowledge with diabetics, PM whenever you like if you need some help = ) That goes for anyone else who reads this as well
-EJ

Well pending how “mild” his type 2 truly is, his diet may or may not even truly be able to help him that much in his old age.

In all honesty, a lot of cases like this don’t turn out so well (my grandfather bit the dust to diabetes a few years ago, it was a very ugly last 2-3 years for him). There’s just not a lot you can do to help someone in their old age when they have had diabetes and/or a lack of good physical health for 20+ years out of their youth.

I would suggest getting him to take fish oil and possibly other cardioprotectant/antiinflammatory-type medicines as soon as possible. Possibly a resveratrol supplement, although I cannot attest to this supplement being truly useful for elder type 2 diabetics as the research just isn’t far enough, yet. It may be though (much work suggests it is) and at this point he could need all the help he can get.

Get him to exercise if you can, at least extended walks/jogs 5 days a week. The exercise and fish oil will do more than “cutting carbs” ever will. However that’s not to say he shouldn’t clean his diet out from top to bottom either. No more candy. No more 3 or 4 meals/day. One large meal/day preferably. Tell him it’s life or death.

Unfortunately some people probably won’t care much though; especially in their old age. Whether that is him or not I don’t know. Hopefully he would take your suggestions seriously and try not to make things worse for himself, because that’s exactly what will happen. Diabetes is a malicious disorder and it will ravage anyone it can as we are all susceptible to it. Prevention is the best treatment.

By the way I am type 1 for over 20 years, hence I feel at least a little justified in writing a message like this… else I would not do so.

I am a type II diabetic. Once i was diagnosed, I went on metformin but what really made the difference for me was a keto diet. My labs improved dramatically once I switched. He needs to stay as far away from carbs as possible. I’m pretty sure he did not pass out from anything related to keto. After 6 months on keto my doc took me off metformin since my labs were looking so good. I still take ALA and fish oil though to help out the insulin sensitivity issues.

[quote]Criswell3000 wrote:
I am a type II diabetic. Once i was diagnosed, I went on metformin but what really made the difference for me was a keto diet. My labs improved dramatically once I switched. He needs to stay as far away from carbs as possible. I’m pretty sure he did not pass out from anything related to keto. After 6 months on keto my doc took me off metformin since my labs were looking so good. I still take ALA and fish oil though to help out the insulin sensitivity issues. [/quote]

I am assuming you are not a seventy to eighty year old man. The problem with a keto diet, is that it requires a lot of energy from the kidneys and liver, two organs that are likely to be compromised in both elderly people and diabetics. If the keto diet works for you that is fine but it obviously did not work for his grandfather. Elderly patients are SO MUCH less likely to consistantly check the blood sugars and such high amounts of protein and fat can caused unexpected highs.

Fish oil and ALA especially are great tools for any diabetic.

Egnatio,

My 65 years old cousin is borderline diabetics type II.
I took a look at his diet and it’s pretty clean, so don’t know how I could do to improve it anymore.
He eats a somewhat low caloric diet including fish, meat, veggies and between 100 and 200g (the higher figure during the week end) of carbs source (half bread, pasta or rice, half legumes). Zero junk food.

I feel powerless! Apart from improving his insulin sensibility by the means of increasing his physical activity don’t know what else to do.

Have you some suggestion?

Thanks!

Regards,