Low-Carb Diet for Diabetes

The Glandt Center for Diabetes Care, located in Tel Aviv, aims to help patients live optimal lives by managing their disease through medicine, diet, exercise, and more. The Center was started by Dr. Mariela Glandt, an endocrinologist specialist in diabetes, and is made up of a multi-disciplinary team all with the joint goal of providing the best care possible.

Unique to this clinic is the low-carb, high-fat diet given to diabetic patients in order to treat the condition and possibly reverse it.

In general, there are many studies (1,2,3,4) that support the low-carb diet for treatment of diabetes. Going back to the 1920’s, this was the standard treatment of care for diabetes before the discovery of insulin.

One study showed that a low-carb diet, followed for 6 months, lead to well-controlled diabetes more than 3 years later.

The American Diabetes Association make mention of low-carb diets in their Nutrition Therapy Recommendations for the Management of Adults with Diabetes.

Some highlights below:

  • It’s unclear how many carbohydrates people with diabetes should be consuming
  • The amount insulin and carbohydrates in the body are the biggest factors in affecting blood sugar response after meals
  • It’s important to track carbohydrate intake in achieving balanced sugar levels

It seems that amount of carbohydrates people with diabetes should be consuming needs to be individualized. Some studies suggest lower levels of carbohydrates (21g per day, up to 40% of total energy), while others lean towards a higher carbohydrate intake. It’s also important to monitor blood sugar levels before and after eating carbohydrates, and to think about the type of carbohydrate when calculating the ideal amount for individual intake.

DayTwo’s CEO Lihi Segal, along with Dr. Mariela Glandt, spoke with i24 News about low-carb diets and how disease can be influenced by our gut bacteria. Dr. Glandt talks about the difficulty her patients have following a low-carb diet, and about the potential collaboration with DayTwo in facilitating well-controlled diabetic diets. You can watch the interview here!

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