Do type 1 diabetics benefit from eating a low-carb diet? The answer seems to be a resounding YES, but incredibly enough there have been no high-quality scientific trials to back it up... until now.
Why this previous absence of studies? It could partly result from the fact that every company selling insulin for type 1 diabetics would immediately lose around half their sales and most of their profits if type 1 diabetics went on low-carb diets.
The new study
Now the first high-quality study (RCT) on low carb in type 1 diabetes has just been published. It shows just what could be expected. Compared to conventional treatment, twelve weeks on a liberal low-carb diet (75 grams per day) showed several benefits:
- Reduced HbA1c, 63 to 55 mmol/mol (8.9 to 8.2%)
- Reduced insulin use, 64 to 44 units per day.
- Weight loss, 83 to 78 kilos (183 to 172 pounds, not statistically significant)
It's a small trial - ten people divided evenly in the two groups. This in a way makes the statistically significant improvements even more impressive. Most pharmaceutical trials need thousands of participants to be able to show an improvement. Here only five people were needed in the low-carb group to get clear results. This implies that the benefits are massive.
Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition: A Randomised Trial of the Feasibility of a Low Carbohydrate Diet vs Standard Carbohydrate CountingRCT shows benefits of low carb for #T1D @dr_kevinlee @ProfTimNoakes @TypeOneGrit https://t.co/4cSJaeoIKt
- Troy stapleton (@drtroystapleton) March 17, 2016
