NYT: Before you spend $26,000 on weight-loss surgery, do this

September 11 2016 by in Diabetes, Dr. Sarah Hallberg

This fantastic article on low carb and diabetes by Dr. Sarah Hallberg is on the front page of The New York Times’ Sunday Review today:

NYT: Before You Spend $26,000 on Weight-Loss Surgery, Do This

Should we really keep recommending people with diabetes extreme and expensive surgery, or many daily medications (all of which come with possible side effects) for people with diabetes?

Should we do this and keep quiet about the much more natural and cheaper option, that may be much more effective?

To lower glucose levels, diabetics need to increase insulin, either by taking medication that increases their own endogenous production or by injecting insulin directly. A patient with diabetes can be on four or five different medications to control blood glucose, with an annual price tag of thousands of dollars.
[T]here’s another, more effective way to lower glucose levels: Eat less of it.
– Dr. Sarah Hallberg

Yet there’s another, more effective way to lower glucose levels: Eat less of it.

It seems like a no-brainer to me. Hopefully many of the readers of The New York Times will agree.

Important

Low carb is very powerful for lowering blood sugar and reducing the need for medications. A side effect of this is that drug doses often have to be reduced – quickly – to avoid low blood sugar. I.e. you may quickly become to healthy for the drugs you’re taking.

If you’re taking diabetes medications and want to start low carb, make sure to read this guide first:

Starting Low Carb with Diabetes Medications

A Low-Carb Diet for Beginners

How to Reverse Your Diabetes Type 2

Video

Reversing Diabetes by Ignoring the Guidelines – Dr. Sarah Hallberg

Earlier

The Diabetes Economy

RD Dikeman on Why People With Type 1 Diabetes Should Avoid the Disastrous High-Carb Diet

4 comments

1
Jacq
September 11 2016 2
I do not understand why this advice is not given to every diabetic patient. Current advice to eat carbs and and then take more and more medication to metabolise the carbs, is on par with telling someone with a nut allergy to eat nuts and deal with the consequences with an Epi-pen. It's madness, it's maddening and surely it is negligent.
2
Rachel
September 12 2016 1
Couldn't agree with you more!
3
VP Bhatia
September 13 2016 1
As as soon as I have reduced carb(2/2016) from my diet my uncontrolled diabetes (26 years old) come under control within a week. This prove magic for me. I want all these also should be translated in hindi also as india is also going a capital of diabetics. I want to help in any way for this if needed.
4
Mike Wolff
September 14 2016 1
I have a couple of ways I tell people about this.
1) Remember on HeeHaw where the patient goes to Dr. Campbell and says "It hurts when I do this" and Dr. Campbell hits him with a rubber chicken and says" then don't do that"? Same thing with blood glucose. Don't eat it.
2) If you poke yourself in the eye with your finger, your eye hurts. Thus your finger is the cause and the effect is your eye hurts. Common sense says then don't poke yourself in the eye. If you place a patch over your eye then poke yourself in the eye with your finger, your eye may not hurt as much but still hurts. Thus the patch resembles insulin and other medicines. Simple logic indicates then that just don't poke yourself in the eye.
Removing carbs if you have trouble with blood glucose control is common sense.