Why a Low-Carb Diet Is the Only Answer for Diabetics
The Diabetes Diet : Dr. Bernstein's Low-Carbohydrate Solution
by Richard K. Bernstein, M.D.
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AND A VERY GOOD ANSWER FOR EVERYONE ELSE
In its March 30, 2001, edition, the respected journal Science published "The Soft Science of Dietary Fat," by Gary Taubes. The article was not in the strictest sense groundbreaking. It was almost more about the politics of diet than the science. For doctors like me who have been writing for decades about the dangers of a low-fat, highcarbohydrate diet and the benefits of a low-carbohydrate diet, Taubes's article was not so much news as a kind of vindication.
What Taubes did was show in clear and convincing detail that there was precious little evidence to support the prevailing hypothesis: that high cholesterol levels and other indicators of cardiac and other disease risk were a consequence of dietary fat, and that dramatically reducing fat and substituting large amounts of carbohydrate would reverse those risk factors. It's a hypothesis that many people still cling to fervently, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
There never were, and still have never been, any studies supporting the notion that dietary fat is the killer it was for decades claimed to be. Taubes writes:
Despite decades of research, it is still a debatable proposition whether the consumption of saturated fats above recommended levels . . . will increase the likelihood of untimely death. . . . Nor have hundreds of millions of dollars in trials managed to generate compelling evidence that healthy individuals can extend their lives by more than a few weeks, if that, by eating less fat.
There are, however, many special-interest groups deeply vested in the high-carbohydrate, low-fat hypothesis.
Because "The Soft Science" was published in a magazine that is well known and respected for its rigorous and carefully researched reporting on science, and because the article was well researched, well reasoned, and well sourced, it was the catalyst for a tectonic cultural shift in attitudes on diet - on what is good for you and what is not.
Taubes won the National Association of Science Writers 2001 Science in Society Journalism Award for his work, but the real earthquake that set off the cultural shift was another article, also by him, that covered similar ground but reached a vastly larger audience.
On Sunday, July 7, 2002, millions of New Yorkers and other readers around the world woke up to the question, posed on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" The cover showed a photograph of a succulent, nicely marbled steak with a pat of butter melting on top. The article inside convincingly explained that what most people have been told about carbohydrate, protein, and dietary fat is wrong.
In 1997, when my book Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution was published, a low-carbohydrate diet was still a fairly radical concept. (When I published the first version of my diet and treatment plan, in 1981, low-carb diets were absolutely on the fringe.) According to nearly all major media, fat was poison. It was making us overweight, clogging our blood vessels with cholesterol, killing us with heart disease, diabetes, and so on. Quite a number of "experts" maintained that so-called complex carbohydrates, such as whole grain breads, oats, and pasta, were the answer to nearly every dietary need.
What was happening then - Americans getting fatter, the incidence of diabetes increasing dramatically - kept happening, and it is still happening today.
Over the last several years, with the wide success of low-carb weight-loss plans such as the Atkins Diet, Sugar Busters, the South Beach Diet, and Protein Power, the onceheretical concept of a low-carbohydrate diet has moved from the fringe to the mainstream - despite the continuing protestation of many diet "experts." Alfred Lubrano, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote on December 7, 2003:
Avoiding bread, pasta and potatoes at what food experts say is an astonishing rate, many Americans are evangelically fixated on the low-carbohydrate dining espoused by diets such as Atkins and South Beach. Depending on the estimate, between nine million and 35 million people are following all or some of the tenets of a high-protein, low-carb eating regimen.
In the same article, Lubrano also writes: "Unlike lowfat and low-calorie, there are no government guidelines defining the term low-carbohydrate. The Grocery Manufacturers of America Inc. has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to come up with a working definition, which food analysts say may happen early next year."
These diets have achieved widespread acceptance with readers and dieters if not with many old-school dietitians because they help people lose weight and lower several cardiac (and other disease) risk factors. We have now reached a flashpoint, and today low carb is a fad. A recent article by Candy Sagon in the Washington Post, "Low-Carb Crazed: Food Producers Scramble to Please a Nation Obsessed," included the following:
The supermarket is rapidly filling with new low-carb products. . . . I tried low-carb Sara Lee white bread spread with Skippy "Carb Options" peanut butter. I grilled a burger and squirted on Heinz's One Carb Ketchup (regular ketchup has more sugar). I sucked down a low-carb Michelob Ultra and wished that I could try the new low-carb Tostitos Edge or Doritos Edge that Frito-Lay is test-marketing in Phoenix and promising to introduce nationally in May. Pasta is a big no-no on the Atkins plan . . . but trust the food industry to develop low-carb pasta (five kinds under various brand names including Mueller's), and saucemakers like Rag? to introduce a new low-carb pasta sauce. Since steak is big on a high-protein diet, Lawry's has a low-carb version of its steak sauce. And although the Girl Scouts haven't come out with a low-carb Thin Mints cookie, candymaker Russell Stover has introduced low-carb mint patties. Snapple and Tropicana . . . now have new low-carb drinks made with the artificial sweetener sucralose.
The author also describes so-called low-carbohydrate offerings at many fast food restaurants, including Burger King, Subway, Baja Fresh, Hardees, and Blimpies. McDonald's and Wendy's have also joined the parade.
It is a blessing that low-carbohydrate diets have gained widespread acceptance, and that a lot of people now have at least some idea (but likely not a very good one) about the role of insulin in building body fat.
It's a bit of a curse, however, that the diets have taken hold so suddenly, because fads tend to promote false and misleading information. I suspect that the largest percentage - if not 100 percent - of the products mentioned in the Washington Post article are not in fact low carb by my standards. Among the "experts" there is little agreement on what low carb means, and when you throw marketing mavens into the mix (the same people who slapped no-fat! claims on candy), things become even more oversimplified as the ka-ching of supermarket cash registers rings throughout the land.
A decade or two ago, people clambered aboard the low-fat bullet train like the station was on fire. Fat was bad, low fat was good. No fat was even better. Where people had been calorie counters in the past, they threw that out the window as the train was pulling out, and started pigging out on low-fat foods. If the label said low fat, the thinking apparently went, it was okay to eat as much as you liked. As long as you avoided the "heart-attack foods" like steak and butter and sour cream, you could keep the no-fat potato. But in fact, the reverse was true.
Now there is the very real likelihood that we will start pigging out on so-called low-carb foods, thinking them virtuous while simultaneously having no idea why. (The grocery boutique Trader Joe's has begun a very significant low-carbohydrate campaign in its stores, providing a guide to the low-carbohydrate foods. They even have a significant stock of "no-carbohydrate" candies, which are sweetened with sugar alcohols rather than table sugar. In truth, because these contain alternate forms of sugar, they are not sugar free, despite the labeling laws.)
There is simply no question that a truly low carbohydrate diet - namely the one presented in these pages - is the solution for diabetics. Indeed, it's the solution to the obesity that plagues increasingly sedentary populations around the world. |
