Diabetes Diet

Diabetes Diet
Healthy low fat diet? Maybe not.
Recent studies throw conventional diet recommendations about fat and diabetes into question.
For the past three decades, dietary conventional wisdom has been to eat a low fat (high carbohydrates) diet in order to best manage your weight, lower your cholesterol, reduce your blood pressure, and improve overall health.
However, surprising results coming out of modern day research labs are challenging many of these long-held beliefs regarding what constitutes a healthy diet. It`s beginning to look like we have been careering down the wrong path all this time, and what you think about dietary fat and diabetes, in particular, may be quite a bit off the mark. Here are just a few of these findings:

High-carb diet elevates triglycerides, lowers HDL (“good” cholesterol).
According to a study published in January 2007 researchers recently examined the diets and cholesterol levels of various groups to look for associations between carbohydrates intake HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. The group that consumed more carbohydrates than any of the others, overall, had the lowest levels of HDL cholesterol.

High-carb diet ineffective for people with high insulin levels.
Researchers conducted a randomized trial in which participants spent six months on either a low-glycemic-load diet or low-fat, high-carb diet and were then followed up for a year. Those with higher concentrations of insulin fared much better on the low-glycemic-load diet than on the high-carb one. The study showed the low-glycemic-load group lost five times more weight after 18 months and nearly three times more body fat than the low fat, high-carb group. This study was published on May 2007.

High-carb diet increases insulin levels which spikes blood pressure.
In an analysis of 10 intervention studies comparing the high-carb, low-fat, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension(DASH) diet with a low-carb, high-monounsaturated fat diet, researchers wanted to see what effect the different diets would have on blood pressure separate from the benefits of any weight loss. What they found out was that the high-carb, low-fat diet produced significantly higher blood pressure than did the low-carb, high-monounsaturated fat diet. The study was published in May 2007.

High-carb diet leads to greater risk for age-related macular degeneration(AMD).
A study of nondiabetic seniors looked at the role of diet on AMD and found that those study participants who consumed a higher-carb diet had 49 percent increased risk for developing advanced AMD. The researchers concluded that 1 in 5 cases of advanced AMD could have been prevented entirely by consuming a lower-carb diet. The study was published in July 2007.