Low carb diet ‘should be first line of approach to tackle type 2 diabetes’ and prolong lifespan A low carbohydrate diet should be the first line approach to manage patients with type 2 diabetes and ‘most likely’ prolong lifespan

A low carbohydrate diet should be the first line approach to manage patients with type 2 diabetes and most likely prolong lifespan, according to a group of experts.

A large-scale review of randomised controlled trials of a moderate low carbohydrate diet, where up to 40 per cent of calories come from carbohydrates, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reveals how it is significant superiority over a low fat diet, where up to 30 per cent of calories come from fat, in the short term for glucose control and cardiovascular risk factors type 2 diabetics. The results show the former diet also has a marginal long term benefit in the same areas.

Study co-author Professor Hanno Pijl, from Leiden University in the Netherlands, said: “There is no plausible explanation for recent media reports that average carb consumption prolongs healthspan in all of us. Indeed, minimally processed, low carb (starch and sugar restricted) food should be the first line dietary approach in the management of type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.”

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Last month, a study published in the Lancet Public Health journal found consuming a diet that is either very high or very low in carbohydrates is associated with a shorter life expectancy. Eating carbohydrates in moderation seems to be optimal for health and living a long life, the research found. A “sweet spot” found somewhere in the middle at 50 per cent of calories.

The findings from this latest study will therefore add further fuel to carboyhdrate/fat diet debate which has split the scientific and public health community.

Responsibility

Dr Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist and anti-obesity campaigner, said in a discussion of the findings with the authors and other health experts in the British Journal of Sports Medicine podcast that doctors have “a duty and responsibility to our patients and scientific integrity”.

He said: “This means we must give advice based on what the up to date totality of evidence says. In my view there is no doubt that the misguided low fat food movement that has driven up consumption of sugar and starchy carbohydrate in the population is at the root of the type 2 diabetes epidemic.

“This is a condition which has an average reduction in life expectancy of 5 – 10 years. It is now clear that a low carbohydrate approach is the most effective way to manage type 2 diabetes, not only in terms of glucose control and improving cardiovascular risk factors but for many reverses the condition entirely. It’s most likely that a real food, healthy low carbohydrate diet will lengthen lifespan, not shorten it. “

More people than ever have diabetes and more people than ever are at risk of Type 2 diabetes, rates of which have risen sharply in recent years alongside the obesity epidemic. If nothing changes, more than five million people will have diabetes in the UK by 2025 – 90 per cent of whom will be type 2.

Arjun Panesar, chief executive of diabetes.co.uk, said: “We have been astounded by the global impact that the Low Carb Program is having on redefining the understanding of type 2 diabetes, it’s metabolic underpinning and the opportunity to put it into remission. Not only is this opportunity achievable, it is sustainable and scalable.

“To date, 350,000 people have joined the Low Carb Program, with published 1-year outcomes demonstrating an average weight loss of 7.4kg, that 40 per cent of people who start on a medication no longer require it and 1 in 4 people who complete the program in remission at 1 year.