Ketogenic Diet For Type 2 Diabetes: Does It Work?

Ketogenic diet for type 2 diabetes: Does it work?

Type 2 diabetes is a condition affecting blood sugar levels that can be managed by following a healthful diet and maintaining a healthy weight.
People who are obese can reduce their risk of developing diabetes by eating a balanced, nutritious diet. Following a diet that is full of vitamins and minerals and low in added sugars and unhealthful fats can help people to lose some of the extra weight.
People who lose 5-10 percent of their body weight can lower their risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent. For people with diabetes or people with pre-diabetes, losing the same amount of body weight can help provide a noticeable improvement in blood sugar.
For some people, the ketogenic diet is an effective way to control their diabetes. It has been shown to lower blood glucose levels as well as reduce weight.
Contents of this article:
What is the ketogenic diet?
Foods containing carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, and fruit, are the body's main fuel source. The body breaks the food down and uses the resulting sugar (glucose) for energy.
A ketogenic diet is a high-fat, very low carbohydrate diet. It was initially developed and recommended for children with epilepsy.
The diet recommends that people eat 30 grams (g) of carbohydrates or below per day. The goal is to eat 3 to 4 g of fat for every 1 g of carbohydrate and protein.
Impact on blood sugar levels
Because the ketogenic diet restricts carbohydrates, there is not enough sugar available for the body to use as fuel, so it resorts to using fat. The process of breaking down fat is called "ketosis," and it produces a fuel source c Continue reading

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Diabetes in your DNA? Scientists zero in on the genetic signature of risk

Why do some people get Type 2 diabetes, while others who live the same lifestyle never do?
For decades, scientists have tried to solve this mystery - and have found more than 80 tiny DNA differences that seem to raise the risk of the disease in some people, or protect others from the damagingly high levels of blood sugar that are its hallmark.
But no one "Type 2 diabetes signature" has emerged from this search.
Now, a team of scientists has reported a discovery that might explain how multiple genetic flaws can lead to the same disease.
They've identified something that some of those diabetes-linked genetic defects have in common: they seem to change the way certain cells in the pancreas "read" their genes.
The discovery could eventually help lead to more personalized treatments for diabetes. But for now, it's the first demonstration that many Type 2 diabetes-linked DNA changes have to do with the same DNA-reading molecule. Called Regulatory Factor X, or RFX, it's a master regulator for a number of genes.
The team reporting the findings in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comes from the University of Michigan, National Institutes of Health, Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, University of North Carolina, and the University of Southern California.
They report that many diabetes-linked DNA changes affect the ability of RFX to bind to specific locations in the genomes of pancreas cell clusters called islets. And that in turn changes the cells' ability to carry out important functions.
Islets contain the cells that make hormones, including Continue reading

Management of pancreatogenic diabetes: challenges and solutions

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Introduction
Pancreatogenic diabetes is a form of secondary diabetes, classified by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the World Health Organization as type 3c diabetes mellitus (T3cDM).1,2 It refers to diabetes due to diseases of the exocrine pancreas: pancreatitis (acute, relapsing, or chronic pancreatitis of any etiology), pancreatectomy/trauma, neoplasia, cystic fibrosis, hemochromatosis, and fibrocalculous pancreatopathy.3 With the exception of cancer, damage to the pancreas must be extensive enough for diabetes to occur.1,2 Rather scarce data on T3cDM suggest that most cases result from chronic pancreatitis, as this condition was identified as the underlying disease in 78.5% of all patients with T3cDM.4
In Western populations, T3cDM is estimated to occur in 5%–10% of all diabetic patients, mostly due to chronic pancreatitis.4–6 True prevalence of T3cDM is unknown – data are scarce, mostly due to challenges with accurate diabetes classification in clinical practice.4,7–9 Many T3cDM patients are initially misclassified due to underrecognized contribution of pancreatic disease to the development of diabetes. In order to improve diagnosis, diagnostic criteria for T3cDM have been proposed by Ewald and Bretzel which include 1) the presence of pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, 2) evidence of pathological pancreatic imaging, and 3) the absence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM)-associated autoantibodies.6 They may be further supported by additional minor criteria, such as an absent pancreatic polypeptide (PP) response to mixed-nutrient ingestion.6 The Continue reading

Top 5 Fruit Choices for Diabetes-Friendly Diets

Fruit can be included in a diabetes-friendly diet. They are full of good nutrition—vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. They taste good and are refreshing, filling, and add color to your plate. The key to eating fruit is to choose the right kinds and appropriate portion sizes. Because they can contain high amounts of carbohydrates that can affect your blood sugar levels, you cannot eat unlimited amounts of fruit.
Fruit Choices for Different Diabetes-Friendly Diets
What are the best fruits for diabetes? This can be a hard question to answer since people with diabetes adhere to varied diets and philosophies when it comes to diabetes management with food. Some people use exchange lists, whereas others stick to low-glycemic diets or low-carb diets. Assuming most people want to know which fruits have the lowest carbs and offer the best health benefits for diabetes, then the following five berries deserve the spotlight.
Top 5 Fruits for Diabetes
Raspberries: With merely 15 grams of carbohydrate (1 fruit choice) in one cup serving, raspberries offer the highest amount of fiber of any berry, a whopping 8 grams. Fiber is the indigestible carbohydrate that helps to pull cholesterol away from the heart, helps you to feel full, and also slows down how quickly blood sugars rise. Raspberries' ruby-red color comes from anthocyanins. Research suggests that anthocyanins may help fend off certain chronic disease, including cardiovascular disease.
Blackberries: They contain about 15 grams of carbohydrate in a 3/4 cup serving. As with raspberries, they have anthocyanins, as shown by Continue reading

Diagnosis and treatment of diabetes mellitus in chronic pancreatitis

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INTRODUCTION
Chronic pancreatitis is a disease characterized by pancreatic inflammatory and fibrotic injury resulting in irreversible parenchymal damage. Progressive nutrient maldigestion and disturbance of the timing and the interactions between nutrient digestion and absorption is observed and may lead to severe metabolic derangements. Glucose intolerance and diabetes mellitus are observed quite frequently in the course of the disease[1,2].
Development of diabetes mellitus in chronic pancreatitis mainly occurs due to the destruction of islet cells by pancreatic inflammation. Additionally, nutrient maldigestion leads to an impaired incretin secretion and therefore to a diminished insulin release of the remaining beta-cells[3]. In contrast to the autoimmune mediated destruction of the beta-cells in type 1 diabetes mellitus, glucagon secreting alpha-cells and pancreatic polypeptide secreting pancreatic polypeptide-cells are also subject to destruction in chronic pancreatitis leading to a complex deranged metabolic situation.
Diabetes mellitus secondary to pancreatic diseases (such as chronic pancreatitis) is classified as pancreatogenic diabetes or type 3c diabetes mellitus according to the current classification of diabetes mellitus (Table 1)[4,5]. Whereas the awareness of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus is rather good, type 3c diabetes mellitus, however, is a condition rarely considered in everyday practice. Yet, recent data on type 3c diabetes mellitus show that it might be more common than generally thought. Studies also suggest that this important condition m Continue reading