Is a Low Carb Diet Suitable for Diabetics?

While all people who are diabetic have to watch their carbohydrate intake so that they don’t send their blood sugar levels soaring, taking an extra step beyond that and adhering to a genuinely low carb diet is, for diabetics, a gold mine.

While standard diabetes diet guidelines instruct patients to watch their intake of carbohydrates, it does not focus in solely on carbohydrates; the main focus of most diabetic diets is not low carb, but rather low sugar. Of course, this is necessary in preventing diabetic attacks and keeping diabetes patients healthy, but one thing that could really bring diabetes under control for these patients is strictly adhering to a low carb diet made for diabetics.

Diabetes and Carbohydrates

People who have diabetes have problems with sugar and sugar processing in the body. Eating something with sugar in it sends blood sugar levels soaring and leaves sufferers of diabetes grounded. All diabetic patients know that sugar is a no-no; what many don’t know is that low carb diets further reduce the amount of sugar in one’s diet. This means that for diabetics, a low carb diet is an excellent option.

A Pancake Example

Carbohydrates are basically sugars that don’t taste like sugars. As soon as carbohydrates are eaten, they turn into sugars inside the body. What this means is that eating a stack of pancakes without syrup is not a very good option for someone who’s diabetic. It might seem like a perfectly healthy option for that person, but the truth is that those pancakes, once ingested, perform basically the same way that the syrup would have. So, in a sense, eating one pancake with syrup and eating two pancakes without syrup results in the same level of sugar high for someone with diabetes. A low carb diet for diabetics is an option that will eliminate the effect of both two pancakes without syrup as well as one pancake with syrup.

An important thing to consider when designing a low carb diet for diabetics, or a low carb diet for anyone, is the glycemic index of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are not all created equal. A piece of white bread and a piece of 100% whole grain bread do not have the same glycemic index. White bread, because the grains in it are more refined, scores higher on the glycemic index than brown bread, which affects blood sugar more than the same size serving of whole grains. Like refined sugar, refined grains are ‘worse’ than grains in their whole state.