From: deputydog23x@gmail.com   
      
   Can a low-carb, high-fat diet help fight diabetes?    
      
   Shari Rudavsky, shari.rudavsky@indystar.com    
   5 days ago    
      
      
   John Terhune/Journal & Courier    
      
      
   Sarah Hallberg is medical director of the medically supervised weight loss   
   program at IU Health Arnett.    
      
      
      
   The morning that Bob MacEachron went to meet his new weight-loss doctor, the   
   one he hoped would help him shed some of his 370 pounds, he sat down to what   
   he thought would be a breakfast of lasts. The last time he would eat three   
   jumbo eggs fried in    
   butter. The last time he would enjoy bacon. He poured heavy cream in his   
   coffee, girding himself for what he feared would be the last time he would   
   whiten the drink with anything other than skim milk.    
      
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   And then he met his doctor, who asked what he had eaten at his last meal.    
   "Perfect breakfast!" responded Dr. Sarah Hallberg to MacEachron's surprise.    
   Hallberg, medical director and founder of the medical weight-loss program at   
   Arnett IU Health Lafayette, is a big proponent of low-carb, high-fat diets.   
   But not just for weight loss. She also believes this diet can treat Type 2   
   diabetes, a disease    
   affecting almost 10 percent of American adults.    
   The former exercise physiologist took her message to the Internet last spring   
   in a TEDxPurdueU talk that has drawn about 325,600 viewers online, more than   
   any other video from the college speaker series' three years. She packages her   
   message with a    
   strong jab at the American Diabetes Association, whose guidelines do not   
   embrace the low-carb concept.    
   "This really makes us question a lot of these recommendations that we have   
   been getting. Clearly they are not working. We keep getting fatter and sicker   
   in this country," Hallberg said in a recent interview with IndyStar. "Do we   
   want to just continue    
   throwing medications at people? Or do we want to get down to the root cause of   
   their problem, which is the food that we're eating?"    
   When Hallberg started the weight-loss clinic about three years ago, she at   
   first focused on helping people shed unwanted pounds. She embraced a   
   low-carbohydrate plan because she says evidence has shown it works best -- not   
   just at helping people lose    
   weight but also on keeping it off.    
   The hallmarks of the diet Hallberg endorses emphasize fat over carbohydrates.   
   People should eat no more than 75 total grams of carbohydrates or 10 to 15   
   teaspoons of sugar a day. To achieve this, Hallberg advocates eating no   
   processed foods as well as no    
   grains, potatoes or sugar.    
   So what can people who do away with carbs eat in their place?    
   "My patients eat fat and a lot of it," Hallberg says in her TedX talk.   
   "'What?' you say. 'What's going to happen when you eat fat?' Let me tell you:   
   You're going to be happy because fat tastes great and it's incredibly   
   satisfying."    
   That means nothing low-fat, fat-free or light. Plenty of proteins such as   
   meat, eggs, nuts and seeds. Minimal fruits, if at all.    
   Within six months of a year of opening the weight-loss clinic, Hallberg   
   noticed that her patients not only lost weight but that those who took   
   diabetes medicines no longer needed to do so.    
   "Weight loss I consider a secondary goal at this time," said Hallberg, who   
   herself follows this diet and says that her weight -- she was always slim --   
   has not fluctuated on it. "Weight can be harder than the metabolic changes. We   
   will see people who    
   have lost very little weight but have a dramatic turnaround in their metabolic   
   health."    
   The program worked for MacEachron, 67, who originally saw Hallberg to lose   
   about 80 pounds so he could have hip surgery safely. Within 30 days of his   
   first visit, MacEachron stopped taking all his diabetes medicine. In nine and   
   a half months, he lost 120    
   pounds -- and did not cheat once, he said.    
   Buoyed by anecdotal evidence from patients like MacEachron, Hallberg partnered   
   with a Purdue University nutrition professor on a pilot study, comparing 50   
   people who followed her method with 50 people who stayed on standard diabetes   
   treatment, including    
   medicine.    
   After six months both groups improved their hemoglobin A1C levels, a measure   
   of how well diabetes is controlled in the long run. Those in the first group,   
   however, had to take less medicine to achieve the result; those in the latter   
   group took more    
   medicine.    
   Such statistics leave Hallberg baffled as to why more health care providers   
   don't support a food-based approach to treating diabetes. Instead, she said,   
   most diabetes doctors prescribe medicine after medicine to control the   
   condition, buying into a    
   billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.    
   "What we're choosing instead is to medicate people. ... It boggles my mind,"   
   she said. "I would say the goal for everyone is to go off medicine. It is a   
   complete routine occurrence. We see multiple patients every day going off   
   medicine."    
      
   INDIANAPOLIS STAR    
   Fight diabetes: Eat bacon    
      
   About 29.1 million people have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease   
   Control and Prevention, and 8.1 million of those do not even know they have   
   the disease. An additional 86 million Americans have prediabetes, according to   
   the American Diabetes    
   Association.    
   Once a person has been diagnosed, medications and care for associated health   
   problems such as heart or kidney disease can prove quite costly. Caring for   
   those with diagnosed diabetes came to about $245 billion in 2012, according to   
   the American Diabetes    
   Association. About 18 percent of that number stems from the cost of   
   medications.    
   Not everyone is as staunch of an advocate of Hallberg's low-carb, high-fat   
   approach.    
   Diabetes specialists can focus too much on medicine and ignore the role of   
   food in managing diabetes, acknowledges Maggie Powers, president-elect of   
   healthcare and education for the American Diabetes Association. That does not   
   mean, however, that the    
   answer lies solely in low-carb, high-fat diets. Rather than prioritizing one   
   eating plan, the Association encourages treatments tailored to individuals.    
      
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