McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liver

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McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liver

Postby bounce08 » Fri Oct 25, 2019 1:46 pm

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to find the optimal way of eating to reverse several health conditions I have:

* NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease)
* Hypertension
* Insulin resistance

I know that weight loss in general will lower hypertension but I'm not sure on how the McDougall diet will impact on the other two.

I've heard that a ketogenic diet (high fat, low carb) is the best method for treating NAFLD however I have too many concerns over that way of eating to follow that path. Is the McDougall way of eating able to reverse NAFLD? With such high starch intake (starch I've heard is linked with NAFLD), I'm not sold.

Secondly, how does the McDougall diet deal with insulin resistance? I'm not diabetic but my HbA1c levels are typically in the 'insulin resistant' range and I'd like to reverse/lower it to normal levels. Again, a low carb diet claims to acheive this.

Any anecdotal evidence or studies would be much appreciated! Thanks.
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby Lyndzie » Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:33 pm

Someone else recently asked a similar question. Here you go: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60193&p=606371&#p606371
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby bounce08 » Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:54 pm

Lyndzie wrote:Someone else recently asked a similar question. Here you go: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60193&p=606371&#p606371


I read that, it only covers NAFLD unfortunately and not insulin resistance.
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby Spiral » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:29 pm

bounce08 wrote:
Lyndzie wrote:Someone else recently asked a similar question. Here you go: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60193&p=606371&#p606371


I read that, it only covers NAFLD unfortunately and not insulin resistance.


Watch this video: What Causes Insulin Resistance? from NutritionFacts.Org

There are many things that cause insulin resistance:

[1] Physicial inactivity
[2] Being overweight or obese
[3] Eating too much saturated fat
[4] Eating too much fat

Now, people can reverse insulin resistance on a ketogenic diet if they lose weight. But once the weight loss stops, the insulin resistance picks up again.

But with a McDougall diet, you can reverse insulin resistance even if you don't lose weight, but you will likely lose weight anyway, if you have excess weight to lose.

Watch the video above or read this post by Jeff Novick. viewtopic.php?f=22&t=59836&p=602646&

This one is also informative: The Real Cause of T2 Diabetes: Fat, Sugar or....
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby bounce08 » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:59 pm

Thanks Spiral, that sounds promising. I'll take a look at those links right now, and thanks again for taking the time to reply.
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby Spiral » Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:21 am

bounce08 wrote:Thanks Spiral, that sounds promising. I'll take a look at those links right now, and thanks again for taking the time to reply.


You're welcome.

This might be surprising, but many advocates of the Low-Carb or Paleo or Keto diet admit that their diet causes insulin resistance.

But they say, "Well, it's not pathological insulin resistance. It's physiological insulin resistance."

Here's Dr. Michael Eades, author of the low-carb book, Protein Power explaining the Low Carb caveat.

Following a low-carb diet makes one a little glucose intolerant, which is the reason that the instructions for a glucose tolerance test always include the admonition to eat plenty of carbs in the week before the test. Why? Because all the macronutrients–glucose, fat and protein–are broken down by enzymes during the metabolic process. And all the enzymes necessary for the metabolism of the various macronutrients are made on demand but not immediately. If you are on a high carbohydrate diet, then you will have plenty of enzymes on hand to deal with the carbohydrates you consume. If you switch to a low-carbohydrate diet, it takes a while to manufacture the enzymes in the quantities needed to deal with the extra fat and protein that your metabolic system hadn’t been exposed to. This deficiency of protein/fat metabolizing enzymes is the reason people starting a low-carb diet become so easily fatigued–they’ve got plenty of enzymes on hand to break down carbs, they just don’t have the carbs to metabolize. Once they produce the enzymes necessary to deal with the load of protein and fat, which takes a few days, they become low-carb adapted and no longer feel fatigued.

Once people become low-carb adapted–as I hope we all are–then the same thing happens if they go face down in the donuts. They don’t have the enzymes on board to deal with the sudden influx of glucose, and, as a consequence, their blood sugar spikes higher than it would on a person eating the same amount of carbohydrate who is already carb adapted.


It's amazing how straightforward Dr. Eades is in admitting that a low-carb diet make one "a little glucose intolerant" and that adding back into the diet "plenty of carbs in the week before the test" restores some insulin sensitivity.

In the comments section of this post, there is this interesting exchange.

Dr. Eades, In preparation for a 3 hr glucose tolerance test–150-200 gm of carbs- I can’t imagine that many grams! Can you please give me an example of what to eat in one day to equal that amount? Will a week of the high carb diet be adequate for the test? Thank you.

Hi Margie–

Follow the standard American diet and you’ll double that carb intake.

What to eat? I would probably eat a potato and some bread and maybe a bunch of rice. You want to eat starch so that you will get glucose. Don’t eat a bunch of stuff with sugar or HFCS because you’ll get a lot of fructose.

You need at least three days of the higher carb fare for the glucose tolerance test to be accurate. I usually have patients follow such a diet for a week just to be sure. But, I don’t usually do a glucose tolerance test, I do an insulin challenge instead, which is much more revealing.

Best–

MRE

Here is Chris Kresser, who isn't a McDougaller by any means, explaining the connection between very low carb and insulin resistance.

Why your “normal” blood sugar isn’t normal (Part 2)

One caveat here is that very low-carb diets will produce elevated fasting blood glucose levels. Why? Because low-carb diets induce insulin resistance.


Here's a piece from Ketopia titled High Blood Sugar In Ketogenic Dieters!

But then I thought about it. WHY does blood glucose rise in response to a low carb diet? It truly is an interesting question. What does it say about low carb diets if they induce an almost diabetic effect on circulating glucose?

Thus my research began. This short abstract confirmed that it is normal for people on low carb diets to experience a rise in blood glucose levels.
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Re: McDougall way of eating & insulin resistance / fatty liv

Postby VeggieSue » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:36 am

The people I've seen who give a great explanation of what insulin resistance is and how a diet of starch based whole foods and low fat work to cure it comes from Robby Barbaro and Dr. Cyrus Khambatta. They've been speakers at many of the veg conferences both on-line and in-person, did a number of lectures at the Esselstyn Plant-Stock this year on the topic of insulin resistance, and have their own program on-line called Mastering Diabetes: https://www.masteringdiabetes.org/ where they teach the starch-based diet that Dr. McDougall advocates.

They may not have much information on their web site other than info on joining their program to get the info, but their YouTube channel does:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mindfuldiabeticrobby/videos

and their website does have a lot of starch-based no added fat recipes.

So, hop over to YouTube to see the "why" and come back here and follow Dr. McDougall's food plan for the "how" of eating this way. At least all the info you need is free between these 2 places.
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