The Marty Kendall situation.

First I would like to say I like Marty and have said in the past he has a great website. He is passionate and a fighter. To say we have had a disagreement over the insulin index is an understatement. This post is not an attempt to have the last word, or score a victory. Marty is free to respond or post here any time. Indeed, I hope we have not seen the last of him. I have received a lot of flack via emails over my stance on the insulin index and my dialogue with Marty.

This is how I see the situation. The insulin index tells us pasta and cereals will raise BG  less than fish or meat, and by definition, will require less  insulin to control, via injected insulin or naturally produced, than fish or meat. This goes against the experience of the many diabetics I know. It goes against all the increasing information from enlightened medical professionals. When have you seen informed medical professionals saying pasta and cereals are fine, but go easy on the fish and meat.

The bottom line, the insulin index is deeply flawed, end of. At Marty’s blog a very high profile guru said “This is one of the most impressive works that I’ve read since finding Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, MD Diabetes Solution” This is a guy who sells a huge amount of supplements and other snake oil products, and is clearly deranged, if he believes Marty’s work rates on the same planet as Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution book.

I asked Marty many times to explain why fish raises BG and Insulin requirements more than pasta and cereals, and never received  a straight answer or explanation. Think on this, Indy brought to our attention Marty is soon to give a presentation to an audience re. the insulin index, possibly to be videoed and made available for general viewing. It seems to me if one half awake member of the audience asks, have you got that right, fish requires more insulin to control than pasta and cereals, he will need a better answer than I got, yet another link to his blog.

One last point, Marty spent a lot of time on this forum and promoted his insulin index hypotheses very hard, countless links to his blog, but never showed the slightest interest in any of the many threads other than his own.

Dietary fish as a major component of a weight-loss diet: effect on serum lipids, glucose, and insulin metabolism in overweight hypertensive subjects

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/70/5/817.long

Though I appreciate Marty has put a lot of time and effort into his presentations I don't feel they are relevant to me as a type two. Fish is more or less a free food for me it has minimal effects on BG, I get a small increase from other protein rich foods but not to the extent reported by type ones

Yes I think that's the big difference. Protein increases demand for insulin BUT ALSO increases glucagon, the result being that BG doesn't change. When your beta cells are completely or mostly dead the effect of the glucagon becomes noticeable to the extent you have to increase insulin to combat it. I suspect most Type 2s (and maybe *some* Type 1s) still have enough beta cells to produce enough insulin to shut down the alpha cells and the glucagon. This is probably a response to insulin actually WITHIN the pancreas and not so much gets there when it's injected.

chris c wrote:Yes I think that's the big difference. Protein increases demand for insulin BUT ALSO increases glucagon, the result being that BG doesn't change. When your beta cells are completely or mostly dead the effect of the glucagon becomes noticeable to the extent you have to increase insulin to combat it. I suspect most Type 2s (and maybe *some* Type 1s) still have enough beta cells to produce enough insulin to shut down the alpha cells and the glucagon. This is probably a response to insulin actually WITHIN the pancreas and not so much gets there when it's injected.

Thanks Chris – now that’s how to respectfully disagree with someone by logic and addressing the science instead of resorting to slurs and insinuations

I wonder if any of the subjects used in the research were Type 2's?

If you have a problem with the Insulin Index, Eddie, you’d look way more professional and objective by going back to the original PhD thesis and dissecting that and the methodology used, not attacking someone who took the data produced by the research and extrapolated from it. If the science is wrong, that’s where the attack should be aimed – but you’re not doing that, Eddie, you’re shooting the messenger instead, JMO.

Maybe you could commission Phoenix to do indepth analysis of the research? Hmnnn, maybe not

I went looking for the comedy skit Eddie posted that he said represented his argument with Marty but couldn't find it.

I thought the following sketch was way more like it, just substitute the words "The Insulin Index" for "Jehovah" as you watch



Now, I'd better follow the thought of the day and flock off

Hi Indy

If there is one thing I have learnt over the last seven and a half years as a diabetic, it is misinformation kills more diabetics than anything else. The misinformation is all around us 24/7. From the NHS, BDA, DUK and countless organisations we should be able to trust. We have all seen misinformation on forums, from people who are very wrong, what their motivation is has always eluded me. When Marty started posting on this forum and promoting the insulin index it was not new to me. A year or so ago I looked at it and felt if it had any merits, the benefits if any would be minimal, but the insulin response data for meat and fish was an “eye opener” as I said in a blog post at the time. Until Marty joined this forum I never gave the insulin index further thought. I wrote it off, like the GI index, on paper it looked a great idea, but in the real world totally useless as a tool for controlling diabetes.

So, Marty joins our forum and it was obvious from the start his only interest was to promote and publicize his website and the insulin index, the same applied to his posts at the flog. No interest in anyone else or anything else, just the same hard sell for the insulin index and his site. Can’t fault Marty on his promotional abilities. The bottom line, the insulin index is deeply flawed for reasons I have mentioned and will mention again. A member said to me in an email the other day I risked making a laughingstock of myself for my views on the insulin index, the way I see it when I start telling diabetics type one and two, to go easy on the meat and fish, but pasta and cereals are the way to go, then I deserve to become a laughing stock. That sort of information is misinformation and goes against every single member of this forums experience and all the untainted science we have read.

If you accept pasta and cereals raise BG higher and faster than meat or fish, then by definition they will require more insulin whether natural or injected to control blood glucose. Well controlled insulin using diabetics know, they have to account for proteins when calculating their insulin doses, and talking to type one diabetics with great control and very long time experience, they tell me they would require less insulin to cover meat and fish than for pasta and cereals. I use the word would, because like most of us, they do not eat pasta and cereals, for the reasons that are obvious to us.

There are many other reasons the insulin index does not stand up. Marty has clearly studied the insulin index at great length. The headline news when the index was released to the world was the meat and fish data., most of the rest, (but not all) was logical and no big surprises. I see it this way. 1. Did Marty ever look at the headline news and think that does not stack up, no way is that most diabetics experience. And if so, why has he not found a logical and believable explanation. I lost count of the times I asked him for some clarity, to no avail. 2. He does know the main thrust of the insulin index is wrong, and has chose to ignore it and hopes people do not notice.

Indy, you accuse me of attacking the messenger and not the originators of the Insulin Index. The originators are elsewhere and they are not spreading misinformation on this forum. I have not been rude to Marty, I have praised his site, and by my standards extremely patient. I have said I like the Man, nothing I admire more than passion and someone who gets off their butt and tries to make a difference.  Marty has had a long time to come back and answer my main objection, could it be I am right and he has no explanation. Time will tell and if I am wrong I will say so, and thank him profusely for adding to my knowledge and understanding of sound diabetes control.

Thank you Indy for your comments on this thread and much valued input on this forum.

Regards Eddie

Indy51 wrote:Thanks Chris – now that’s how to respectfully disagree with someone by logic and addressing the science instead of resorting to slurs and insinuations  

Bollocks, you cyst!

(quote from Fellini-Satyricon)

chris c wrote:

Indy51 wrote:Thanks Chris – now that’s how to respectfully disagree with someone by logic and addressing the science instead of resorting to slurs and insinuations  

Bollocks, you cyst!

(quote from Fellini-Satyricon)

I know you are all fascinated with the insulin index bun fight  (well I am) I thought I would check out Jenny Rulh's site to see if she had checked it out. Not as such but this was interesting. BTW Jenny Brand-Miller was the author of the insulin index.

From Jenny Ruhl here http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/22168291.php

"Is the Glycemic Index a Scam?

You've been hearing a lot lately about the health benefits of so-called "low glycemic" foods. The theory is that these are foods which, though filled with carbohydrates, digest slowly and hence do not raised blood sugar. This, we are told, makes low glycemic foods ideal for everyone, especially people with blood sugar problems.

The truth is far different.

What the Glycemic Index Measures

To understand why the GI diet concept is flawed, you have to understand what it is that the glycemic index measures.

The way nutritionists create a tables of glycemic index values is this: They feed a measured dose of a single food to a group of completely normal people. Then they test their blood sugar two hours after they have eaten and come up with an average blood sugar value they compare to the blood sugar the same group experienced after eating some reference food, usually white bread or pure glucose.

You can read about the research that established the GI in this paper authored by GI inventor (and bestselling GI book author)Jenny Brand-Miller.

International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values Kaye Foster-Powell, Susanna HA Holt and Janette C Brand-Miller. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 76, No. 1, 5-56, 2002

As you can see from that research, pure glucose--which goes right into the blood stream without any digestion at all digests as fast as any food can. It has a GI of 95 plus or minus 10. White bread is supposed to have the same GI of 95. According to Dr. Miller's research, Coca Cola made with high fructose corn syrup has a much lower GI: its GI is 63. Fresh orange juice has a GI of 43. A banana is 46 and at the low end, kidney beans are reported to have a GI of 19-25. While Lender's bagels are listed as having a GI of 72 and rye pumpernickel bread is listed with a GI of 55. Spaghetti cooked al dente has a GI of 32.

As you can also see from the article, one huge problem with the GI index tables is that they are not reproducible. Test one group of people with the food and you will get one value. Test another group and you'll get another value. And that is just what happens to the averages. Test three individuals and you will get three different values. The authors of the theory really stretch to explain why this happens, because nonreproducible results usually mean death for a scientific theory.

But fortunately for them, nutritionists don't let nonreproducible results stop them when those results seem to confirm a strongly held belief, no matter how unscientific. Especially when they have been desperate for anything that could help them ignore the growing number of studies proving that low carb diets are not only safe but more effective than the low fat/high carb diets that they have been promoting for the past two generations.

So nutritionists have embraced the idea that Low GI foods are healthy with enthusiasm, because it allows them to continue to prescribe high carb diets. All that has changed is that they now prescribe low GI high carb diets. And they now attribute to them all the disproven health claims they used to make for the low fat diet."

It seems to me the results of the insulin index are also nonreproducible. No two people would have the same insulin response to the same weight and type of food. After seeing the Southport GP's infograph on "what foods do you think a type two diabetic should avoid" it prompted me to produce a half spoof half serious infograph clearly demonstrating what I had found to be my and many others experience, i.e. the opposite of the insulin index. While pasta and All Bran cereal were low insulin index foods, meat and fish were high insulin index foods. For many well controlled diabetics pasta and cereal is a no no, while holding stable safe numbers consuming fish and meat. It should be remembered proteins are essential for life, carbs are not.


The plot got even more confused, when I found this info today from Jenny Brand-Miller and others. It appears to say the opposite to other information from Jenny Brand-Miller in circulation. And nice to see fish and meat back on the menu and cereals and the usual suspects to be avoided.





Info taken from here. http://www.nutrientdataconf.org/pastconf/ndbc35/4-2_sampson.pdf

I don't know about you but I find all this very confusing, and I am beginning to see why Marty could not give me any straight answers. It would also appear Jenny Brand-Miller is confused, not hard to realise why this 'possible' insulin index scam has not taken off in the last 19 years, but I hear the book done very well.

Well,I reckon your 'Common or Garden' newly diagnosed diabetic would run a mile from this overtly complicated 'Index'-Me included...A set of scales for measuring food quantities,a Glucometer and some basic low carb advice to start with served me well whilst keeping things simple! Index or no index my meter has shown that the likes of cereal and pasta are poles apart from eating meat and fish...Sure if I eat a shed load of protein I will see double figure BG readings but no-where near what I would see eating starchy foods and besides...We advocate and follow a low carb high FAT regime here and NOT a low carb high PROTEIN diet hence why I've chosen to ignore Marty's thread on here-Nothing personal to Marty as he seems a decent and passionate guy but his teachings are of no benefit to me sadly.

Paul1976 wrote:Well,I reckon your 'Common or Garden' newly diagnosed diabetic would run a mile from this overtly complicated 'Index'-Me included...A set of scales for measuring food quantities,a Glucometer and some basic low carb advice to start with served me well whilst keeping things simple! Index or no index my meter has shown that the likes of cereal and pasta are poles apart from eating meat and fish...Sure if I eat a shed load of protein I will see double figure BG readings but no-where near what I would see eating starchy foods and besides...We advocate and follow a low carb high FAT regime here and NOT a low carb high PROTEIN diet hence why I've chosen to ignore Marty's thread on here-Nothing personal to Marty as he seems a decent and passionate guy but his teachings are of no benefit to me sadly.

The bottom line as we have said for a long time, no money in simple, the money is in complicating the situation. Food weighing scales, a BG meter and a carb info book, end of. How much will that information earn anyone. If you really want to push the boat out, a copy of Bernstein's Diabetes Solution end of. Sorted get on with your life, and keep well away from diabetes forums

What I find easy to understand is that Type 1 diabetics often have a very different response from Type 2s.

What I find hard to understand is that most of the Type 1s I know, whether on pumps or MDI, DO have to take protein into account when calculating their boluses - but the bolus for protein is invariably a fraction of what they use for carbs, nothing like the same or more.