On Fri, 28 May 2004 08:25:12 +1000, John Holman wrote:

> 27/5/04 11:03 PM Wade Reeser wrote:
>
> > I mean, I think most of us have seen the
> > posts from MDs who still say you need to ingest 50g of carbohydrate daily or
> > your brain will die
>
> I have a friend who was considered by his Doc to be type 2. Within one week
> of moving to a 50g gram per day carb diet he was symptom free, his BG was
> normal and stable and his energy had returned.  It took a month before
> everything had settled properly...

Hello John,

I think you understood me correctly, but just wanted to clarify.  The brain DOES
need somewhere in the neighborhood of 50g of glucose everyday. However, it does
not need to come from INGESTED carbohydrate, rather people are perfectly
capable of creating 50 gram of glucose through gluconeogenesis.  Some parts of
the brain run just fine on ketones but there are a few tissues that can only
run on glucose proper.  But I have been told personally by an MD, a professor
in nutrition at Penn State and more than one 'well read' nutritionist that you
are in grave peril if you go below some foggy minimum of carbohydrate a day
(50g being mentioned a few times).  They seemed unimpressed and I suspect they
think I was lying when I told them plenty of people, myself included, have gone
months/years under 50g of carbohydrate a day.


> Also, Lutz I believe has successfully treated many issues including Diabetes
> with a diet of less than 70 grams carb per day.
>
> I think for many people reducing carbs by any amount and increasing fats
> especially saturated fats (whether they eat paleo or not) would go a long
> way helping with a myriad of health issues.

I think diabetes and all the resulting complications are best treated by a low
carb diet.  I favor a very low carb (<20g a day) for type 1 and somewhere under
100g or 150g for type 2.  People's tolerance to carbohydrate varies a bit when
the goal is too become/remain a 'fat burner'.  Not that it need be, but often
paleo diets are 'lower carb' and many of us have improved health, sometime
dramatically.  It is hard to figure out how much health improvement is from
reduced insulin and how much is from reducing or eliminating food
sensitivities.


> Just my 2 cents
>
>
> John Holman
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