Will Low-Carb Diet Help Blood Sugar?

Great advice!

Diabetes is, in essence, an inability of the body to process properly a high level of carbohydrates. Keep the vegetables and eliminate most starches. Avoid all foods with trans-fats, which are found in most processed foods.

Take these steps before diabetes sets in and, likely, the condition will be held at bay. Take these steps after a diabetes diagnoses and, likely, you will avoid diabetic complications.

It's very easy to do and maintain once you get in the swing of this way of eating!

Any of the old Atkins books, or perhaps better, the newest (New Atkins for a New You, Eric Westman, MD, at Duke) will help the writer understand what's going on with the blood work results.

High carb, very low fat may work for some.
Low carb, high fat works better for many, and is much tastier, once one gets used to lots of kale. (Good high-nutrition, low carb vegetable.)

What really kills fast is high fat, high carb, which is what most fast-food restaurants sell and the center aisles of the grocery store are packed with.

My BP dropped 10 points with no other changes than sloppy low-carb eating.

You are absolutely correct that you can't eliminate carbs and fat at the same time. The only thing left would be protein and there is a limit to that. High fat diets (read low carb) are safe as long as the carbs are very low. Together they are the poisonous American diet. For the last 40 years we have been erroneously told that fat was bad and look at the results. We are fatter than ever we metabolic syndrome at epidemic proportions.

Science is the answer and science not wishful thinking says fat is fine with low carb. Eggs are safe and wonderful food.

Read Eric Westman's "New Atkins Diet" for both the science and a safe encouraging program that works. If you want more science read Gary Taubes' "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It."

Following Atkins will cause your blood sugar level to drop to a safe level, but more importantly will greatly lower you Triglycerides and raise your HDLs (very, very, good).

Since your doc recommended low carb, he probably can confirm all this to you.
The new diet revolution is occurring, because of science not fad.
Good Luck.

What about exercise? I don't see any indication that these people were exercising along with a healthy low fat diet. Also, "low fat" is misleading. Fats like olive oil, fish, nuts, etc. are good to eat when trying to lower bad cholesterol. Eating eggs and other high cholesterol foods seem counter productive. What about Fish oil? Cinnamon? There are so many natural ways to try to lower bad cholesterol. Wouldn't a low carb diet, "good" fats, whole grains (oats, barley, bran, etc), and exercise be a better alternative?

You have used the magic bad word "seem" when you talk about eggs and High Cholesterol Foods. It doesn't matter what seems to be correct, it is what science proves to be correct or incorrect. The reality is that your body needs cholesterol and most of the cholesterol in your body comes from that produced w/in your body and not from what you eat. Many recent studies show that eggs are a wonderful food and totally healthy in a lo carb diet.

Exercise is of course beneficial. Taubes explains well why we exercise more on a high fat low carb diet (we burn fat for energy) and why the typical American diet of high carbs takes good fatty acids out of our blood stream and causes blood sugar spikes up and down which make us tired.
Read the science.

The key factor I found to lower my blood suger is something no one ever mentioned to me -- get an adequate amount of sleep. After carefully monitoring my diet and getting exercise, I noticed that if I got 8 hours of sleep, my blood sugar was good. Less sleep, sugar climbs. Less sleep for several days, high blood sugar.

Why don't they mention this when they tell you that your blood sugar is high?

Grains are mostly carbs. Pretty hard to do a low-carb, high-grain diet. Enough of the grains have gluten-or-equivalent, and enough people have sensitivity to gluten if not full-blown celiac disease, that it's worth experimenting with not eating grains, too.

Agreed, "white" (flour and sugar) are the worst offenders. I really want to say "worstest," they're so much the problem. For me, the rest of the grains aren't very much better. My acid reflux completely goes away when I don't eat gluten.

We've been so swamped with "low fat is good, fat is bad" advice for so long, that the mainline low carb way of eating proposed, initially, as the ONLY treatment for Type I diabetes back at the turn of the LAST century seems radical. But it's been around for a long time. Give it 90 days and see what happens. They're not going to stop making Rice Crispies just because a few of us gave up breakfast cereals.

I worked 5 1/2 years at a facility that uses natural remedies to treat disease. After a 3 week stay most people suffering from diabetes and/or high cholesterol had normal blood levels for both cholesterol and blood sugars without the use of any medications. They ate 2x a day of a whole-foods plant-based diet, avoiding such things as white potatoes and nut butters.

The high fiber diet releases sugars slowly in the digestive tract and levels out the blood sugars. Exercise and lots of water to drink were the other major contributors. Energy is hugely increased and I've seen neuropathy reversed. And yes, sufficient rest is also an important factor! This life-style is very beneficial for most complaints and the person is free from the expense and deadly side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs. Also, the longer they continued on this lifestyle, the more their health improved!