>For diabetics: while it is true that carbs are what your body has trouble
>processing, it is also true that a diet extremely low in carbs actually
>makes it harder for your body to deal with carbohyrates and will make your
>diabetes worse.
I don't know about this. I don't have diabetes, I just know or know of lots of people who do.
As I understand it, these folks have no problem dealing with carbs on ketogenic diets. In fact, people who had BS levels that went off the charts report that, once they drop carb intake to 30-40 grams a day, they find that they shoot right back down to normal levels and get off the meds that they were prescribed.
This is also what I understand based on the research I've been doing re: weight training and dealing with food intolerance. No one can live without protein or fat. You can live, however, without carbohydrates. There are NO essential carbohydrates. Your body will produce them. There are essential fats and proteins: your body can't make them. Eat too much protein? It gets converted to glucose. The kidney problems have to do with a tendency for most USers to be dehydrated and they surely aren't from too much protein. My ex had to have a kidney removed. Even back then it was clear that kidney problems aren't _caused_ by too much protein. Rather, too much protein exacerbates an already present problem. At any rate, check this one out because, as I learned way back when, there is no correlation between high protein intake and kidney stones or other kidney diseases.
What you miss without carbs are vitamins. I know people who are doing ketogenic diets because they're into weight training, i'm doing a modified version of it myself. They do NOT, i repeat DO NOT, eat more protein that the typical USer. It's really difficult to eat that much protein anyway. Protein and fat based diets create a natural appetite suppressant and you don't want to eat. Folks who are really into weight training are constantly talking about having to force themselves to eat. I've been there. On a food elimination diet, I experienced this myself.
As Taube pointed out in the article I forwarded, and as the Harvard Women's Health report pointed out as well, the traditional food pyramid high in carbs is based on a crock of bad research supported by the Ag industry lobby. People on ketogenic weight training diets are eating 65-100 grams of protein from fish, vegetables, beef, pork, and fowl. When they do the Zone, they tend to have an eating plan with protein intake based on their lean body weight rather than an abstract average based on some "average" person.
I don't have diabetes, but I know family members who do. The Food Pyramid recommendation is 300 grams of carbs. Low carb "fads"--and I think it's inaccurate to describe relatively well researched material as a "fad"--suggests about 100 grams of carbs a day, carbs which are to be mainly derived from vegetables and fruits. A person who works out an hour and a half each day, like me, needs to get about 120-140, which is plenty to get in a good healthy dose of fruits and vegetables each day and all the vitamins you need.
Under this kind of a diet, people i know are bringing down really dangerously high blood sugar levels whereas the low fat, high carb diets they were on weren't working at all. They did so by dropping down to 30ish carbs a day and then upping the carbs until their BS levels started to get out of wack.
at anyrate, i'd be curious about research you can point me to. i don't know all the answers, but i thought what you said was pretty balanced except for the kidney/protein thing and the diabetes. i'm not familiar enough with the research behind diabetes, but i do know from family members and friends that low carb--under 100 grams--has been great for them.
kelley