Oh. My. Word......potato, potato, potato.....

I have been pretty quiet on here for a while as I was still experimenting, not knowing quite what to do or where to go.

I had thought about trying the Newcastle Diet and actually did a few days here and there on very low calories, but as my hair was falling out even faster I decided to listen to a few podcasts on hair loss on an online seminar that has been on at the moment.

One of the speakers was Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health fame. I had come across him three or four years ago, but dismissed him as a bit of a nut job. 'Refeed with lots of starchy carb'. Yeah, right.

Anyway, his talk struck a chord. Weirdly, the day before, I had got so sick of being scared of food I'd just thought, sod it.

It was the flapjack, you see. I'd made it, but it was still a bit warm when I was taking it out of the tin and fell apart. I couldn't bear to see all the lushy crumbly stuff sitting there making the tin untidy, so I ate some. Then some more. Then some more. I had to clean the tin so I could wash it up. Having fallen off the wagon I had a baked potato with my dinner. Not just a bit of, a WHOLE one. Every mouthful.

Having gone to bed with a blood sugar around 12 and knowing it was always higher in the morning, I took the reading with intrepidation. I nearly fell over when it was 7.2!

That day I came across Matt's hair loss podcast, downloaded his 'Diet Recovery 2' book, and have been eating potato ever since. Yesterday my FBG was 6.8. Last night it was 10.6 when I went to bed, this morning.......wait for it.....5.8. Ta da!

Guess what I'm having for breakfast..... :0)

In some ways, what he is saying makes sense. He has found that many people's insulin resistance gets worse on LC. Mine did. He is saying that we have to retrain the pancreas to deal with carbs. Cutting out the foods the body cannot process is a solution, but it isn't a cure.

I wouldn't ever go back to eating wheat because I firmly believe it's what 'done fer me', making me sick, but if the good old potato is the solution to me being able to eat other carbs....and flapjack (which was made of oats, nuts, sugar, butter, and chocolate chips ), then who am I to complain.....?

" He has found that many people's insulin resistance gets worse on LC"

I don't agree with that for one minute. I believe we do get more intolerant to starchy carbs on a low carb diet. The same way an alcoholic will become more sensitive to booze if he falls of the wagon after a period of time, the same way a drug addict will become more sensitive to street drugs after a period of abstinence.

The last thing we should attempt is to try and become tolerant to carbs. I reckon I am extremely intolerant to arsenic, and I won't be trying to build up a tolerance any time soon. Once a diabetic always a diabetic, and carbs will always be poison to us above a certain level. I have never promoted a no carbs diet.

Congratulations on the good morning numbers, but going to bed with 12 and 10.2 on your meter is doing you no favours at all.

Ali, just keep testing as I think your BG levels will steadily begin to rise as your carb intake rises. Your diet is your own choice and you're a smart lady so I won't try to dissuade you. Keep us updated regularly if you could, I'd be interested to see how your body reacts. Take care, Mo

Funny thing is, I came across a reference some time ago, didn't unfortunately make a note of where, of a situation back in maybe the 20s or 30s where a woman was cured of diabetes by putting her on a very high sugar diet.  Wish I could find out more about that.

There are various aspects to this.  Apparently, well at least in some people, low carbing pushes up cortisol and stresses the adrenals.  Eating starchy carbs - and by that I mean containing resistant starch - lowers cortisol, reduces the adrenal stress, raises the body temperature, and ups the metabolic rate which gets things working better. It seems everything works faster and more efficiently when it's warm.... :0)

Lowered body temperature is often blamed on thyroid insufficiency, but perhaps for many it is just as simple as upping the RS food intake.  A higher body temperature appears to have a beneficial effect on most functions, hormones, enzymes, etc., and in my case quieting the internal 'beasts'.

I am sure that many on a low carb diet remain in a catabolic state for a long time.  I seemed to have been permanently cold for years.  My hub was always complaining about my cold hands.  Cold hands, cold feet, cold nose, and cold bum....

Eating potato is warming me up - and maybe waking me up.....

One lass commented under one of his articles on his blog that her FBG had been high for a long time, even on low carb, but just days into a potato 'fast' her blood sugar dropped like a stone to 4.7 and stayed there!

I reckon we still have an awful lot to learn - and being open-minded is a good place to start......

I just question and question all this.

We aren't born diabetic.  We might have a vulnerability to it, but that isn't an automatic sentence.

It develops.  In type 1 it's pretty sudden, in type 2 it is a slower progress, but it is still a process.

The biggest factor in understanding it is knowing what it is that drives it.

Why can some people eat lots of sugar yet never develop it?  

Surely, the key to a cure is finding out the trigger.

It is interesting to note that there are strong links between different types of addiction and wheat consumption.  Many who have had to remove it from their diet due to a Celiac diagnosis or severe intolerance have found their long-standing alcohol, drug, OCD, issues resolving.  There are endorphic proteins in wheat that trigger addictive tendencies, not only to the wheat itself, but to other endorphic substances.

I am convinced that wheat was my trigger.  I had to go wheat-free/low carb when my digestion all but collapsed 7 years ago due to the wheat/gluten damage, but have managed to rebuild it to a point where I can eat most things, including carbs without any digestive issues.

Yes, my blood sugar goes up, but this is about increasing sensitivity, glucose clearance rate etc., and I am never going to find out if I can unless I challenge my body to try it.

So far, and it is still early days (this is only the 3rd full day) it is still going high after carb food, but the fact that my FBG has dropped into virtually normal range after just 3 days is pretty awesome.

Of course going to bed with levels above 10, and waking up with them even higher isn't good, but there was nothing I could do.  The insulin wasn't bringing it down, eating virtually no carb wasn't bringing it down.  When the only thing that would bring it down was water-fasting, that is not a long-term solution either!

If it takes RS potato to bring it down, who am I to argue?  I am just grateful I am not so totally hitched to the LCHF lifestyle that I couldn't possibly admit to anything else being a solution.....  

All carbs are not the same.  Assuming they are is like saying ALL fats are bad......

AliB wrote:I just question and question all this.

We aren't born diabetic.  We might have a vulnerability to it, but that isn't an automatic sentence.

It develops.  In type 1 it's pretty sudden, in type 2 it is a slower progress, but it is still a process.

The biggest factor in understanding it is knowing what it is that drives it.

Why can some people eat lots of sugar yet never develop it?  

Surely, the key to a cure is finding out the trigger.

It is interesting to note that there are strong links between different types of addiction and wheat consumption.  Many who have had to remove it from their diet due to a Celiaxpc diagnosis or severe intolerance have found their long-standing alcohol, drug, OCD, issues resolving.  There are endorphic proteins in wheat that trigger addictive tendencies, not only to the wheat itself, but to other endorphic substances.

All carbs are not the same.  Assuming they are is like saying ALL fats are bad......

"We aren't born diabetic.  We might have a vulnerability to it, but that isn't an automatic sentence."

There have been four generations of type two diabetics in my family so I reckon genetics can play a very big part. Check out Dr.Jay Wortman's family and type two diabetes.

"It develops.  In type 1 it's pretty sudden, in type 2 it is a slower progress, but it is still a process."

Type one is still a complete mystery for the boffins. Type two is a combination of many factors. Genetics, diet, lifestyle, caused by statins and other drugs, the list is long.

"Why can some people eat lots of sugar yet never develop it?"

The same way some can smoke all their lives and drop dead at 90 years of age and others are dead at 40 years of age from lung cancer. I know someone who has been an alcoholic for at least 30 years and he shows no serious problems. There is a lot of luck or bad luck in life, that's what makes it so much fun.

"All carbs are not the same.  Assuming they are is like saying ALL fats are bad....."

Agree 100% all carbs are not equal. Carbs from a plate of vegetables are a million miles away from drinking a can of coke.

I always feel a little awkward about commenting on diabetes and blood sugars when I am not diabetic, but comment I do !

I know, or would hope, that all diabetics would want blood sugar numbers as near to non diabetic levels as is possible....... and how they achieve that number has to be an individuals choice.

Most, but not all, diabetics I have spoken to, or come into contact with, wish to achieve blood sugar numbers as low as possible. Some are happy at 6.5, some 5.5 and some (but not many) achieve numbers in the fours.    

Is R S potato the answer to the holy grail I don't know, and I have my doubts.

I don't think Dr Bernstein would entertain the idea of R S potato, would he?

All the best Jan

Probably not Jan, but then as far as I understand, correct me if I am wrong, he is type 1 not type 2.

The thing is, I am not looking to manage my diabetes, I am trying to reverse it.

If you'd suggested to me a few days ago that potato would lower my blood sugar I'd have thought you were (Sid) Bonkers. But, ever the one to not knock something till I've tried it, I did.

Whether the last few months of fasting/juicing/smoothies/low calories has reset something, or whether it really is just the potatoes, I haven't a clue. But something is definitely happening.

My sugar levels still go up higher than I would like during the day, but to have FBG lower than my nighttime levels, and virtually in to normal range is pretty amazing after all the months and months of being unable to move it much lower than 10 regardless of how much insulin I took.

This ain't gonna reverse over night, but I will keep going with it and will document any further progress. I would love to know how the potatoes are doing this. I had a sweet potato this evening, but didn't eat the skin like I did with the white jackets. Whether that will make any difference in the morning I'll have to wait and see.

I had a cold baked potato for breakfast yesterday, and brown basmati rice plus half a poppadom, plus at least 2 chunks of flapjack during the day as my carbs yesterday yet still my FBG was 5.8 this morning. The consensus seems to be that you eat lower fat with the carbs than on a LC regime. Still had butter on me tater though.

Just a little comment by a poster under this article on Matt Stone's website caught my attention.

"High blood sugar is actually a compensation for a dehydrated state".

Now that rings true for me.  I have long felt that dehydration is somehow linked.  And it never seems to make any difference how much water or fluid I drink.

Does the potato thing work because it somehow manages to help rebalance the fluid levels within the body?  Did my insulin resistance worsen on LCHF because it didn't actually address the fluid issue?  Is that why LCHF makes me so constipated?  Makes my hair fall out?  Made me gain weight rather than lose any?

Hmmmm.  Food for thought......

http://180degreehealth.com/diabetes-wrong/#comment-118577

To be honest, my impression of Matt Stone is internet weirdo quack, but maybe that's just me.

If I was going to follow anybody's advice on how to mend my cellular signalling/mitochrondrial dysfunction, I'd definitely pick Dr Terry Wahls who is doing actual medical research, before following advice from an internet fringe dweller like Stone.

Will be interesting to see how this affects you in the longer term. I'd be worried about weight gain. But then again, as Dr Bernstein says, "What works, works". If it works for you, more power to you.

AliB wrote:Just a little comment by a poster under this article on Matt Stone's website caught my attention.

"High blood sugar is actually a compensation for a dehydrated state".

Now that rings true for me.  I have long felt that dehydration is somehow linked.  And it never seems to make any difference how much water or fluid I drink.

Does the potato thing work because it somehow manages to help rebalance the fluid levels within the body?  Did my insulin resistance worsen on LCHF because it didn't actually address the fluid issue?  Is that why LCHF makes me so constipated?  Makes my hair fall out?  Made me gain weight rather than lose any?

Hmmmm.  Food for thought......

http://180degreehealth.com/diabetes-wrong/#comment-118577

"High blood sugar is actually a compensation for a dehydrated state". Now that rings true for me. I have long felt that dehydration is somehow linked."

Dr. Bernstein has said how important it is to stay well hydrated. When you become dehydrated your body takes water from your blood. This makes the sugar in the blood more concentrated and can lead to very high BG numbers.

Yes Eddie, but how to get hydrated. For weeks at one point I was drinking at least 2 litres of water each day, but it made no difference to my hydration nor my blood sugar levels. It seems hydration is not as simple as just drinking more water.

I likely will gain weight Indy. In fact, it's almost a given, but then I also gained well over 30lbs on LCHF.

I have known of Matt Stone for three or four years and also dismissed him as a bit of a joker, but the answers don't always come from the corners we expect them to. Whilst those who shout the loudest often get the attention it's those who quietly think outside the box who often join the dots.

I'm not saying he's right, but as I said, I'm not knocking it until I've given it a fair trial.

My FBG was a bit higher this morning at 7.8 but considering it was over 13 when I went to bed last night yet was still down in single figures I think that was pretty amazing. I had a very munchy evening last night between the flapjack and some chocolate :0)

Whilst it is still trending higher in general than I would like, it is still very early days, but I am so relieved to see the insulin finally actually working and the low FBG numbers. I was getting scared when I was injecting but it didn't seem to be doing anything.

The humble potato seems to have woken my sensitivity up.

Who knew.....?

I was just listening to a podcast - another talk on hair loss, another of my issues that didn't resolve on LCHF - given by Josh and Jeanne Rubin, and they seem essentially to be saying a similar thing to Matt Stone.  

Don't use supplements. If you are eating the right food - including starchy veg - and enough of it to upregulate the metabolism and get everything working as it should, your body should be getting what it needs nutritionally.  Using food to replace and repair what's been missing, maybe even for years.

Gonna have to look into that further......

Hope it works out for you Ali, I do have an issue with the quote you gave from Matt Stone  "He has found that many people's insulin resistance gets worse on LC" after seven years of LC my insulin resistance has definitely not got worse, I'm not alone in finding that, there are a few of us still managing to control our diabetes on minimal meds or diet only.

You are right Graham that many do seem to be ok on LCHF, but I have come across a considerable amount of people on the internet who have had a similar response to my own.

Just maybe some of us following LCHF do manage to heal to a certain extent, and the point at which the insulin resistance starts to worsen is actually our bodies telling us we need to increase the carb intake to improve glucose clearance.

That is only supposition and I obviously don't know for sure, but something metabolic is going on.

Why did so many comment under Matt's articles that their insulin resistance got worse, but radically improved when they added starchy carbs? It kind of goes against everything that makes sense, but then no one really knows what causes diabetes, so at this point anything could work.

Type 2 diabetes is not a sugar metabolism issue as such, it is an insulin resistance issue. Poor old sugar gets blamed for everything, yet maybe it is not the real culprit at all, well at least not the nutritional sugars like fruit and honey, and potatoes......

I have long believed that diabetes is really a deficiency issue. Somehow, many of us are sorely lacking one or more elements. So much of our food is grown in weak soil propped up by chemical fertilisers that lack many minerals and trace elements. Every mouthful of nutrient-devoid 'food' like processed sugar, processed wheat, processed meat, and 'food' containing substances our bodies need nutritional elements to process that are missing from the food, or from our bodies, just keeps the deprivation going.

It is recognised that people with diabetes tend to be very low in certain elements like magnesium, chromium, vanadium, some of the B vitamins, etc., yet taking those elements as supplements often has little effect. We have to remember though that nothing ever works in isolation. It can take even a minor deficiency in one little trace element to trigger a cascade of malfunction in the utilisation, function of or absorption of many other elements (the recent 'discovery' of vitamin K2 and how it affects the function of many minerals, etc., is a case in point).

The use of chemical fertilisers may also interfere with the way elements function or can be used, as can other human 'meddling' processes. From another angle it is known for instance that fluoride and chlorine in drinking water may compete with iodine, attaching to receptor sites in the thyroid. Bromide also does a similar thing, and that in latter times has been added to wheat flour and some sports drinks, etc. In very small doses these things likely would be ok or even beneficial, but if they are ingested far more than iodine and grab the bulk of the receptors, the thyroid will suffer.

So little is known or understood about all this. It is so enormously complex the little that is (thought to be) known may well be totally and utterly erroneous.

PS. I took my BG at around 12.30 am. It was 6.8. Two hours ago it was 11.4.

I can't get over this.....

Ali I have a few ideas that may help you, but I don't want to get off on the wrong foot, may I ask a few questions. 1. Was you diagnosed as a type two diabetic ? has that changed i.e you was misdiagnosed ? 2 Are you over weight, if so by how much ? 3 Have you ever had a plasma insulin level test ? 4 Have you ever had a R and R interval test ? 5 Do you have regular thyroid checks ? Have you ever tried a Keto diet say less that 30 carbs and a reduced calorie say around 1300 for a couple of months or so at the same time ?

Hope you don't mind me asking, talk again soon.

Still be interested in your progress Ali. Ultimately, if you can maintain tight control with your new diet I'm very happy for you. The beauty of this forum, or any forum, is the sharing of ideas through personal experience. Take care, Mo

eddie1 wrote:Ali I have a few ideas that may help you, but I don't want to get off on the wrong foot, may I ask a few questions. 1. Was you diagnosed as a type two diabetic ? has that changed i.e you was misdiagnosed ? 2 Are you over weight, if so by how much ? 3 Have you ever had a plasma insulin level test ? 4 Have you ever had a R and R interval test ? 5 Do you have regular thyroid checks ? Have you ever tried a Keto diet say less that 30 carbs and a reduced calorie say around 1300 for a couple of months or so at the same time ?

Hope you don't mind me asking, talk again soon.

Eddie,regarding the R-R interval test-Do they routinely screen diabetics for Autonomic Neuropathy in the UK? I've never been offered it myself or seen it mentioned on the flog.

I've never had that test either. Perhaps you need to display certain symptoms first ?

mo1905 wrote:I've never had that test either. Perhaps you need to display certain symptoms first ?

I would assume so although I could be wrong-Presumably Autonomic Neuropathy takes years of badly controlled BG's to develop?

PS...Sorry for derailing your thread @AliB

eddie1 wrote:Ali I have a few ideas that may help you, but I don't want to get off on the wrong foot, may I ask a few questions. 1. Was you diagnosed as a type two diabetic ? has that changed i.e you was misdiagnosed ? 2 Are you over weight, if so by how much ? 3 Have you ever had a plasma insulin level test ? 4 Have you ever had a R and R interval test ? 5 Do you have regular thyroid checks ? Have you ever tried a Keto diet say less that 30 carbs and a reduced calorie say around 1300 for a couple of months or so at the same time ?

Hope you don't mind me asking, talk again soon.

1.  I was diagnosed at age 40 as type 2 (but my mum was type 1 and Dad late onset type 2

2.  I might well have been misdiagnosed, or went on to develop type 1 - with insulin resistance.

3.  Never had a plasma insulin test.  After the Byetta fiasco when I realised I may not have been producing much insulin I did ask the 'speshlist', but he said there was no test.  But then he was an eejit.

4.  Dunno what an interval R & R test is, apart from rock n roll.....

5.  I had one thyroid test done a few years back but it came back normal.  The doc did say that I could have subclinical thyroid insufficiency, although I have no real obvious symptoms of that.  Cold extremities quite often, but not all the time, and only when I haven't eaten enough food to stoke the fire.... :0). Even if my thyroid was low, I would rather deal with it dietarily rather than take more drugs.

6.  Yes I have done sub-30 gms carbs keto.  Even virtually zero (apart from broccoli) when I was on Bee's Healing diet for 3 years.  You name it, I've probably done it.  Tried lowering fats, tried lowering calories, tried standing on my head.....

The diet did heal my digestion.  It works a darn sight better now than it did when I started and virtually everything I ate was going straight through me.  But the insulin resistance worsened, I gained well over 30lbs and didn't lose it in over 3 years on the diet (nor since apart from the few lbs lost whilst fasting), my hair never stopped falling out, and my energy never came back. Oh and I was constipated something awful (which now seems to have resolved beautifully on potatoes.... )

Many people do recover their health on her diet, even some with mild insulin resistance, but not me.  Karen, who I became very pally with on there, and who was one of her moderators actually ended up becoming insulin resistant on her diet although she wasn't before.  She is relatively slim and only did the diet because of poor digestion and Candida, but although her digestion and the Candida issue improved, she ended up with IR!

Whether people's IR improves or worsens on LCHF must have something to do with what has triggered their diabetes and what is gong on in their body. There very obviously is not a 'one size fits all'.....

The potato addition does have a link to the resistant starch thing that is getting a bit of publicity lately, so maybe its not that far fetched after all....

@AliB Re the weight gain and IR,how many units of injected insulin were you taking whilst the weight gain was occurring?

Paul wrote:

mo1905 wrote:I've never had that test either. Perhaps you need to display certain symptoms first ?

I would assume so although I could be wrong-Presumably Autonomic Neuropathy takes years of badly controlled BG's to develop?

PS...Sorry for derailing your thread @AliB

It's not derailing it Paul.  I think it's all connected.

The crazy thing is, before my digestion collapsed back 7.5 years ago and I got on to the low-carb train, I had had years of IBS, restless leg syndrome, 'gouty' toes and burning feet (neuropathy), GERD and a 'pocket' hiatus hernia, palpitations, sweats, flushes and rampant fungus.

All that went away.  Despite my blood sugar having consistently been a lot higher than I am comfortable with over the last 5-6 years or more I have had no recurrence or even twinge of (supposed 'diabetic') neuropathy, nor any of the other issues, which does beg the question, is it high blood sugar that drives things like neuropathy, or something else?

In all those 7 years I have not had wheat......

Low carb hasn't solved everything, but a lot has improved.  Has it been a two-fold improvement due to not having wheat plus replacing it with good real natural food.  Maybe the nutrition has solved some problems but there is still something lacking somewhere to solve the complete puzzle....

It varies Paul, but I have tried desperately to keep it below 50 units per day because I know that increasing the insulin is not the answer. I need to find a way to get what I am taking working better in my body. My body is insulin resistant because it doesn't want it.....

AliB wrote:

Paul wrote:

mo1905 wrote:I've never had that test either. Perhaps you need to display certain symptoms first ?

I would assume so although I could be wrong-Presumably Autonomic Neuropathy takes years of badly controlled BG's to develop?

PS...Sorry for derailing your thread @AliB

It's not derailing it Paul.  I think it's all connected.

The crazy thing is, before my digestion collapsed back 7.5 years ago and I got on to the low-carb train, I had had years of IBS, restless leg syndrome, 'gouty' toes and burning feet (neuropathy), GERD and a 'pocket' hiatus hernia, palpitations, sweats, flushes and rampant fungus.

All that went away.  Despite my blood sugar having consistently been a lot higher than I am comfortable with over the last 5-6 years or more I have had no recurrence or even twinge of (supposed 'diabetic') neuropathy, nor any of the other issues, which does beg the question, is it high blood sugar that drives things like neuropathy, or something else?

In all those 7 years I have not had wheat......

Low carb hasn't solved everything, but a lot has improved.  Has it been a two-fold improvement due to not having wheat plus replacing it with good real natural food.  Maybe the nutrition has solved some problems but there is still something lacking somewhere to solve the complete puzzle....

Something struck a chord above with me in some of those symptoms you described,especially the restless legs,palpitations and burning feet-they were just some of the symptoms I experienced with the pernicious anemia I developed a few years ago linked to the Crohns disease I have...Have you ever been tested for B12 and folate deficiency Ali?