Diabetes: The link between diet and diabetes

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So brace yourselves and prepare to enter the Twilight Zone of nutrition reality.

The lowdown on type 2 diabetes and fat intake

Staying focused on the strict dietary guidelines required of type 2 diabetics is hard enough without having to wade through blatant misinformation.

So imagine you've just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and you come across this line in a recent news item: 'New research explains the mechanism behind the widely recognised link between a high-fat diet and type 2 diabetes...'

How's that again? The 'widely recognised' what?

You'll find some 'experts' who maintain that what you eat is irrelevant. They claim that an excess intake of calories (ANY calories) is the root of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Whatever their reasoning may be, these experts choose to ignore the fact that some foods cause blood sugar to spike, regardless of the calorie count. And if you subject the body to these spikes over and over again, day after day, your system eventually becomes insensitive to insulin and diabetes risk rises.

Foods with high fat content do not cause a sugar spike. Nevertheless, American researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine say that their mouse study shows that a certain enzyme enables beta cells in the pancreas to produce the right amount of insulin in response to changing glucose levels. But (they say) high-fat foods suppress the enzyme, which accounts for the imaginary 'widely recognised' link between type 2 diabetes and fat intake.

I had a feeling that US HSI Panellist Dr. Allan Spreen would find this theory equally amusing and infuriating, and I was right. Here's Dr. Spreen's take on the UCSD study: 'It sounds like they're cooking up a non-existent link for which they can produce a solution. Robert Atkins spent 40 years TREATING type II diabetes with low-carb (and therefore high-fat) dieting (along with supplements), and he did it effectively.

'Type II diabetes (you'll get arguments from the conventional side of course) is caused by highly refined carbs. If there's such a 'link', it's certainly not proven; and that's assuming anyone's supporting something so ridiculous. In short, I'm not impressed at all.'

Too much sugar sets the stage for diabetes

And then there's the sugar controversy. Although, in a world that valued logic it would be no controversy at all.

Richard Kahn is the chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association (ADA). In May of 2005, Mr. Kahn made this comment in an interview: 'There is not a shred of evidence that sugar per se has anything to do with getting diabetes.' (This may be sheer coincidence, but in April 2005 the ADA established a very lucrative partnership with Cadbury Schweppes, one of the largest soft drink producers in the world.)

I guess that 'per se' gives Mr. Kahn's statement some wiggle room. You can say that sugar does not 'cause' diabetes and you might be technically correct because of the way you've chosen your words. But there's no doubt that a high intake of sugar products (which are highly refined carbs) will set the stage for insulin resistance.

Mr. Kahn says 'there is not a shred of evidence.' But don't tell that to researchers at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA). As detailed in a recent study that appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the UCLA team examined more than 60 overweight children, assessing their diets, body composition and markers for diabetes, including acute insulin response (AIR). They found that 'higher intakes of sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages' were 'significantly' associated with lower AIR and lower beta cell function.

I think that qualifies as a 'shred' of evidence.