I think “make them healthier” is the aspect that so many diets overlook. You can lose weight by not eating, but it doesn’t mean you’ll gain health. Basically, I just cringe when I see a study come out that says “x group lacks (or has) gene for y.” I just know that many people will grab onto it and say “well, I lack (have) that gene…might as well give up.” You’re right about the need for the proper environment, which was my point with pointing out that genes aren’t a roadmap. They are waiting in the background for the day you step out of line.

Good luck with controlling your blood sugar. Don’t forget that along with maintaining a low- to moderate-carb diet, getting some vigorous exercise will help to open up the insulin receptors and clear out the glucose.

Cheers
Scott

For instance, I don’t even have an official diagnosis of diabetes yet because I haven’t been able to get my doctor (former or current) to get past my usual “normal” FBG and A1c results and below-normal BMI, despite having gestational diabetes when I was pregnant 9 years ago. But I have been eating low carb since 2004 and it occurred to me a few months ago that with the LC way I eat they should be in the *low* end of normal, not the *high end*. My doctors have brushed that off. So for the last 4 months I have been keeping a food diary and using a personal glucose meter, so I now *know* I get diabetic readings (over 200) pretty easily if I stray off my usual strict low carb diet or do my own glucose tolerance test. Like the other commenter, I probably was ruining my beta cells all those years of listening to the diet dictocrats, eating “healthy” whole grains and beans (even during my underweight years) and not enough animal protein and fats, consequently my weight crept up about 20 lbs after my pregnancy and back on my old “healthy” carb-rich diet. But it was pretty fast & easy to lose the pounds on LC (and even easier to lose a few more pounds and keep them off with the feedback of the glucose meter — eating to the meter).

My experience has been that the medical community is not addressing this as they should, despite all the hoopla and concern that the diabetes rates are skyrocketing. The standard of care is to use only the easiest and cheapest screening tests, such as fasting BG and perhaps the A1c, despite that the recommendations for someone with my history is to do a glucose tolerance test or at least a post-meal test. The consequences of this money-savings and convenience strategy is that the diagnosis is delayed for who knows how many years and damage from high blood sugar continues. My family members probably have similar glucose problems as mine (my guess is that the family heart disease history that freaks them out so much is really undiagnosed insulin resistance or glucose intolerance), but they are told their BG results are normal, so they are reassured and won’t hear a word from me about what a “truly normal” BG level is. Whole grains will keep them healthy, they’ve been convinced.

The irony is that I’m the only one in my family who has actively tried not develop a diabetic condition (perhaps due to my brush with it when I was pregnant), yet I’ll be the first to be diagnosed. Hopefully in time.

So I do agree with you for the most part, that people give in a bit too much to what they think are their genetic tendencies so that they don’t have to change, but I also think that the folks who really know about genetics and the biochemistry of glucose metabolism (the medical community) aren’t really telling folks what they need to know in this case: genetics is only half of the problem; it also needs the right environment or lifestyle to express the genetic tendencies and the typical American diet and lifestyle is a perfect diabetes gene incubator!

Congratulations to you for taking your health into your own hands and keeping your blood sugar in check, even though the damage from the years of “healthful low-fat eating” could easily make someone throw up their hands and say “Too late…the damage is done.” A member of my family was diagnosed as Type II about a year ago and immediately set out to lose weight (he wasn’t very overweight anyway…just a typical 50-year old) and change his diet to control his blood sugar rather than letting it progress to an insulin-dependent state.

Thanks for stopping by.

Unfortunately, by the time I figured out that everything I “knew” about diet was wrong, it was too late. My pancreatic beta cells were too far gone to completely recover normal function, even after several years of a paleo-style diet, weight loss, and exercise.

My blood sugars are now in the normal range, but that doesn’t mean that I am “not diabetic,” since a glucose challenge will send them skyrocketing as high as ever. Perhaps at an earlier stage one can “become ‘not diabetic,’” but this is certainly not always the case.