Diabetes Awareness Month

One of the most prevalent diseases in Canada today, there’s a big chance that you or someone you know suffers from a type of diabetes.
There are multiple types of diabetes, which at its very simplest creates problems with the body’s pancreas and insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps your body control glucose—a simple sugar your body makes after eating starchy or sugary foods. Located behind the stomach, the pancreas is responsible for releasing insulin to help your body regulate the storage and usage of sugar. And that sugar doesn’t have to be basic table sugar… fruits, starchy vegetables, many carbohydrate-based grains and some dairy products like milk are all converted into sugars within the body. Diabetes occurs when the pancreas stops producing enough insulin or when the body doesn’t respond to insulin like it should.
Type 1 diabetes
Formerly called juvenile diabetes, type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and makes up only a small percentage of the total number of diabetes patients in Canada. Type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas fails to produce insulin on its own. With no insulin to help control glucose in the body, the glucose builds up within the blood instead of being used for energy. Those diagnosed with type 1 diabetes need insulin therapy and other treatments to help their body do what their pancreas can’t. Not caused by external factors (unlike type 2 diabetes), the reason for getting type 1 diabetes remains unclear and the disease is not preventable.
Type 2 diabetes
The form of diabetes that is becoming a worldw Continue reading

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Video: What's the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes?

While they're both technically under the umbrella of diabetes, type 1 and type 2 are very different conditions which require a distinct set of treatments. We've looked at some of the main questions people have around each.
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What's the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes?
Dr Sarah Jarvis, GP
There are several different kinds of diabetes, but two main ones. Type 1 diabetes is nothing to do with lifestyle. It's what's called an auto-immune disease.
We think that you inherit tendency to have type 1 diabetes and then a trigger in your environment (possibly a virus infection, and there may well be lots of them) triggers your body to start recogni Continue reading

Low Carb and Weight Loss in Type 1 Diabetes

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In type 1 diabetes, the body doesn’t automatically respond to meals by releasing insulin, this has to be done manually through taking injections or through bolus doses via insulin pump.
If you’re looking to lose weight, this can give an advantage, in a way, as it allows you to review exactly how much insulin you’re taking each day.
By contrast, people without type 1 diabetes have no good way of knowing how much insulin they have in their body.
A good rule of thumb is that the more units of insulin you take per day, the more likely you are to put on weight.
See also more general advice in our guide to weight loss on a low-carb diet
Less insulin intake, improved weight management
Say Jill and Michelle are roughly the same height and both have type 1 diabetes. Jill is taking 50 units per day and Michelle is taking 100 units per day. Generally speaking, it’s more likely that Jill will be finding it easier to manage her weight than Michelle.
So, if you’re looking to lose weight, one way to achieve this is to modify your diet, or eating habits, so that you take less insulin whilst maintaining good blood control.
Warning note: We need to make an important safety note that reducing your insulin whilst letting glucose levels go high for long periods of time is not a good idea at all. Doing this will lead to a much greater risk of very serious health problems such as retinopathy, neuropathy and kidney disease.
Reducing insulin intake safely
There are a number of ways insulin intake can be reduced in a safe way:
Lower your carbohydrate intake
Lower your protein intake Continue reading

3 Simple Tricks To Not Let Type 1 Diabetes Ruin Your Diet & Weight Loss Goals

“Type 1 diabetes stops me from losing weight” is the number one excuse I hear when people say they are struggling to lose weight (seriously, my Instagram inbox is flooded with this statement/question). And while insulin can be a tricky hormone to work around when losing weight with type 1 diabetes, I’ve found that 99% of the time it is because their general dieting techniques are off.
Before reading my three nutrition tricks for losing weight with type 1 diabetes, make sure you are doing the following:
Weighing and tracking your food intake (My Fitness Pal)
Eating toward a specifically calculated calorie/macronutrient (IIFYM.com)
Combining aerobic & anaerobic training
If you aren’t following the above, it is most likely not your diabetes that is stoping you from losing weight– it is the lack of clarity and preparation for your goals.
Once you solidify your general nutrition foundation, now you can go to the next specific tactics related to diabetes management that will help you stay on track.
Carb Reserve
There is nothing worse than being on track to hit your calories and macros perfectly then being engulfed by an endless food-frenzy brought on by a bad low.
Hypoglycemia is a major reason why people go over their carb & calorie limits for the day as you need carbs to fix the low. But there is a way to work around this issue: Implementing a carb reserve.
A carb reserve is when you reserve 15-30 grams of your total daily carbs for a low blood sugar attack. For example, if your weight loss goal calls for 100 grams of carbs a day, act like you only have 85 grams of ca Continue reading

Preparing to Prescribe Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes Prevention and Treatment

The number of people worldwide with type 2 diabetes is expected to double by 2030.1 In the United States, diabetes affects ~ 26 million people of all ages, about one-fourth of whom are not yet diagnosed.2 Despite the availability of a wide range of pharmacological treatments and the best efforts of diabetes educators and other health care professionals, good control of diabetes and its comorbidities remains elusive for much of the population, as evidenced by rates of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that are two to four times higher than those of people who do not have diabetes.2
Although dietary habits and body weight play undisputed roles in type 2 diabetes, the question of what eating pattern best addresses glycemia, cardiovascular risk factors, and weight control remains controversial. The uniform, calorie-controlled diabetic diet plans of the past have been replaced by individualized meal-planning approaches, and in more recent years, nutrition guidance has focused on carbohydrate counting and minimizing saturated and trans fats. With the release of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans3 came praise for plant-based eating patterns, which have been extensively studied for weight management and disease prevention and treatment.
Individuals following a plant-based eating pattern typically consume fewer calories and less fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol and have lower BMIs than nonvegetarians. They also consume more fiber, potassium, and vitamin C. In prospective studies of adults, compared to nonvegetarian eating patterns, veg Continue reading