Case history: 59 year old man who was referred to me one month after he had
been diagnosed with type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetes (NIDDM). Before
we met he had got the advice to minimise fat intake which he truly did to
around 10 per cent of daily energy (E%) (Swedish average is 37) largely by
eating polymeric or elementary diets to which he had easy access. By use of
a nutrition software that he and a mutual friend of ours had developed he
systematically explored the effects of varying proportions of CHO and
protein on weight, blood glucose (he has like most of our diabetics his own
glucometer) and urinary glucose while keeping fat intake at 10-12 E%.
Before I even mentioned the ongoing discussions of high protein intake in
prudent diets he reported that the combination that helped him the best to
lose weight was 45/45/10 of Prot/CHO/Fat (note that he never changed his
fat intake). When CHO was increased to 70% his blood sugar immediately went
up. During the following 2 months his HbA1C (glycated hemoglobin which
reflects average blood glucose in the last 6-8 weeks) was almost normalised
from 8.1% to 6.0 in 2 months. Weight went from 115 to 102 kg, serum
triglycerides from 2.1 to 0.7 mmol/L, serum cholesterol from 6.5 to 5.6
mmol/L and fasting serum insulin from 16 to 3 mU/L. We rarely succeed that
well with our NIDDM patients even if we give them antidiabetic medication
(which by the way has not been shown to prevent early death or coronary
heart disease).

As for the saltiness of meat I refer to my personal experience which is
that a low salt diet is easier to comply with if it includes much meat. In
April 1987 I started my life-long experiment on a no-salt everyday food
mainly based on meat, fish, tubers, fruit and nuts. During the first 8
months I made no exception and my 24 hour urinary sodium excretion was 14
mmol (most Westerners excrete 100-250). When after a couple of months I was
accustomed I experienced that meat is quite salty compared to vegetable
foods, i.e. the naturally occuring salt in meat is high as is also evident
from food composition tables. There is no difference in sodium content
between wild and domesticated animals. Today heavily salted meat is
virtually inedible to me and my family.

Staffan