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Defeat Diabetes Foundation

Defeat Diabetes
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First Conference on Science of Low Carbohydrate....

Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Despite millions of people trying one or another low carbohydrate diet and the food industry undergoing a massive revolution, reduced carbohydrate continues to be controversial. The media is eager to publicize opposition groups that pop up like mushrooms and the nutritional establishment is mostly characterized by stunned silence. The recent conference at the Brooklyn Marriott on Nutritional and Metabolic Aspects of Low Carbohydrate Diets (http://downstate.edu/kingsbrook/), while not specifically endorsing any diet, brought out current progress and, in some cases, the clear clinical benefits of controlling carbohydrate intake.

The first of its kind, the conference assembled a broad array of speakers encompassing the biochemical and clinical fields bearing on the effect of macronutrient composition. Among the notable talks: Donald Layman of the University of Illinois summarized evidence that higher protein/carbohydrate ratios significantly improve weight loss and glycemic control. Daniel T. Stein of Albert Einstein College of Medicine provided new understanding of the convergence of glucose and fatty acids in controlling insulin production, possibly opening the door to reconciling different nutritional strategies.

Most impressive from the standpoint of diabetes, were talks by William Yancy, Jr. of Duke University and Frank Nuttall and Mary Gannon of Case Western Reserve who showed that patients on low carbohydrate diets not only consistently showed improvement in glycemic control but required a reduction or elimination of medication. During the audience discussion, practitioners using low carb approaches for diabetes had serious “warnings” that medication should be reduced or eliminated before beginning low carbohydrate diets. Presentations on markers for cardiovascular disease continue to indicate that reducing carbs is, if anything, protective of cardiovascular disease. Khosrow Adeli of the University of Toronto demonstrated the significant lipogenic effect of high fructose diets and pointed out that there is a dramatic increase in dietary fructose consumption, through increase in sucrose (table sugar: 50% fructose) and high-fructose corn syrup.

[from unpublished interview]:

Richard Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry at Downstate Medical Center and Chief organizer of the conference said “For the weight loss reports, from the Westman group at Duke and Volek’s lab in Connecticut: “If some of the low carb vs. low fat graphs had been labeled drug vs. placebo, everybody would rush out to buy stock in the drug company.” Whereas many talks were quite technical, seemingly above the heads of much of the audience, Feinman suggested that “the most remarkable thing was that almost 200 people of diverse backgrounds hung in there because they could see that serious science was being brought to bear on the subjects and, although we are far from having a complete answer, they don’t want to be dissuaded by the nay-sayers.”

Proceedings of the Conference will be published in the new BioMed Central journal Nutrition & Metabolism beginning in August (http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/home/).

Unrestricted educational support for the conference was provided by Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Keto Foods, Inc., the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation, The Rumford Foundation, America’s Beef Producers, Kaplan Test Preparation and several Pharmaceutical Companies.

Source: Diabetes In Control