The underlying issues with many of these studies has to do with the economics of diabetes. Drug and medical equipment companies want to sell their products and go to great lengths to do so. Insurers want to pay for as little as possible and so they set rules. For example: only so many testing strips allowed in a month, or, you can have the insulin pump if you’re Type 1, but not the CGM.

All of this makes the expensive process of looking after your diabetes, totally impossible for some.

I know this is a whole big political issue about the economics of health care and I could write pages about it, but that’s not really the purpose of this post.

Into the bargain, the major diabetes organisations and educators are still not touting the benefits of a lower-carb diet, particularly for those people who are finding it difficult to manage diabetes. It’s getting better… certainly better than several years ago, but the medical community has a long catch-up to what some of us know works.

To have good control, you need a CGMS or lots of test strips, and often some expensive medication. Thankfully, many doctors are now realising that starting Type 2s on insulin much earlier, has boundless benefits. But for those who don’t many Type 2s are not only being given high carb diets, but are left in nowhere-land when their diabetes control is out the window.

To have better control, many people who don’t have good HbA1C results, could benefit from cutting their carbs to make their diabetes easier to control. How much you cut your carbs depends on what works for you.

I’m not saying that if you have diabetes, you can’t eat whatever you want. If you have appropriate medications and your BGL spikes after food are within your target range, and your HbA1C is under 7% (under 6.5% if possible) then by all means, enjoy!

If you can’t achieve this, then cutting carbs will definitely make your diabetes easier to manage.

Note, I’m not saying low-carb. That’s a choice, and low-carb – well, there’s no denying it, I do it sometimes, but it’s very restrictive. Really depends on how motivated you are.

You’ll see results by keeping your carbs under 120grams a day, 100grams if you can (better), 50-80grams if you can (best, but difficult for many), that’s with counting all vegetables – even the ones you were taught have no carbs (eg a green salad – it does have some carb, tomatoes have carbs etc).

Let me tell you that I’m the first one who can’t walk past a piece of scrumptious chocolate cake made with quality dark chocolate, adorned with triple cream. The problem is that I did it for years, totally unable to stop high BGLs (I wasn’t on insulin then and doctors were still insisting I had Type 2). And the tablets didn’t help – it was a prescribed dose no matter what I ate and they all made me feel sick and did horrid things to my belly .

I’m of the opinion that it’s so much easier to manage diabetes with insulin. I wouldn’t have said that before I mostly got over my needle-phobia.

I’ve been promoting a lower carb way of eating for more than 10 years. Sometimes I wasn’t motivated to do it, sometimes I was. And if I didn’t do it for one meal, I’d do it for another. Even now, I’m not doing it all the time. Yes, I do eat a piece of cake here and there, or have a packet of crisps. Everything in moderation, right? But my numbers have improved dramatically from the days that I wasn’t looking after myself because it was proving too difficult. Little did I know!

I also think that along with lower carb, the Paleo way of eating is a great way to go. Do some research! You might find something about it that appeals to you.

I think people forget that these total changes in diet are sometimes really difficult to do. Who says you have to do it all at once?

Start with one meal a day… or one meal every other day. When you see the benefits on your meter, it might motivate you to try 2 meals a day.

What’s better than having 3 BGL spikes a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Two spikes a day! What’s better than that? One spike a day! And better than that, NO spikes!

Take baby steps if you can’t take the really big ones.

If you’re someone who uses food as comfort or as a reward, if you don’t fix that problem, it’s going to be difficult for you to drastically change your diet. Or do you not care enough about yourself? Why? Find out! It’s truly worth fixing. It’s definitely fixable.

This is in many ways, a little gentle motivation for you, if you think you could benefit from lower blood sugars and think you can’t do it. You can, and you will… just give yourself permission to do it the way that suits you best.

Yet again, it’s usually a case of the medical community treating a conditon and forgetting the holistic approach. It’s easy for them to forget they are treating a person, not just a disease.

Speaking of research, which was the start of this post, do read some of Jenny’s other material particularly about diet and managing diabetes. Her web site, Blood Sugar 101, (different to her blogging site) is meant mainly for Type 2s, but much of it is in-depth info that applies to Type 1s as well.

As far as the research goes, every day it seems that yet another expert comes to a seemingly intelligent conclusion, but when you look deeper, the research is flawed in some way. If you’re ever reading a research paper, the first thing to find out is who funded it. Start from there and you’ll have some answers even before you get past the first paragraph.