http://www.diabetesmine.com/2008/03/jumping-in-with.html

That site will offer an extension to the online discussions started here!

In this case, I just want to thank Chris, for his/her excellent post. I wish we could have an online discussion about it here.

Gluconeogenesis is governed by hormones, in fact, the same familiar ones that always affect blood sugar, insulin and glucagon. In addition to putting blood sugar into your cells, insulin also tells your liver not to turn protein into sugar.

When you eat a high-carb meal, you’re forced to take a bunch of insulin, which prevents gluconeogenesis, so you only have to worry about carbohydrate. With less carbohydrate, you won’t have enough insulin to prevent gluconeogenesis, so your blood sugar will rise from both carbohydrate and protein.

The effect is that your insulin-to-carb ratio doesn’t work anymore. What used to be a line when you graphed it now curves at the bottom. You could eat a zero-carb meal and your blood sugar would still go up, and you’d still have to take insulin: everyone, always.

I can sympathize with wanting to eat carbohydrate most of the time, but “taking a meal off” once in a while by not eating so much, so you get a more reliable blood sugar reaction. But as I noted, the formulas change, and you’ll have to figure out how to handle something new.

Dr. Bernstein’s low-carb diet handles this by eating the same amount of carbohydrate AND PROTEIN at corresponding meals every day. That makes it easy and reliable since you use a constant dose, not a formula. To be more flexible, you could probably make up a formula with some experiments. Up to you.

http://weblogs.redeyechicago.com/wordonthestreet/2008/03/word-of-the-day.html

Also, without too much scientific knowledge on the topic, if a high-protein diet puts more stress on the kidneys (exactly one of the organs we are trying to protect), then controling your diet with a moderate amount of carbs seems reasonable to me.

I am able to eat 40-60g of carb with no spike in my blood sugar if I give humalog 15-20 minutes before eating. So it will be hard to convince me to go NO carb.

Perhaps this is just my internal way of justifying my actions based on my love of pasta, rice, and potatoes. But I guess, as always, different strokes for different folks!

Anyway, I love the diversity of responses I get here. Just the other day, a commenter was stating that “Low carb diets are not ideal for diabetics… Fruit? No problem… My A1cs have never been better on a vegan, high-carb diet.” (!)

YMMV, obviously — as mine does.

But don’t pay attention to what I say, you can find out for yourself. Wait AT LEAST 5 hours after your last meal, then have one big meal with almost no carbohydrate, maybe just a small salad and 50 g protein from meat. Don’t bolus at all, or just go by what your insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio tells you, which should mean almost nothing. See if you like what happens to your blood sugar. (Note that you may have to try a water fast in a similar situation to rule out basal issues.)

As for those authorities that claim a high-protein diet may cause kidney problems, please look at the DCCT (Diabetes Complications and Control Trial), which showed high blood sugars definitely cause kidney problems. If a high-protein, low-carb diet is what it takes to control your blood sugar (and it certainly helps), then you’ll be doing your kidneys a world of good.