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Diet(contd)





Diet is a personal preference, and there are countless number of diets on the market.  Some have found the conventional diets helpful while others have found extreme diets, such as Atkins, more helpful in their particular case.  The decision should be discussed with our doctor or specialist nurse in order to arrive at the diet that you can adhere to and which will deliver the desired benefit that you are aiming for.  


It is worth mentioning here that the Atkins Diet excludes carbohydrate to a great extent, and accordingly this has consequences on the level of treatment that the diabetic is taking, particularly your insulin requirements.


Although the conventional wisdom has been to reduce the intake of fat from the diabetic diet, the Atkins liberal intake of fat has not so far been associated with negative effects on lipid profile.


Diets which use meal replacement drinks can have theoretical effects on the speed of absorption of nutrients and the blood sugar profile in the post prandial period.  Some good results have been obtained using Weight Watchers, which incorporates diet, exercise and weekly support group meetings.


It is unfortunate that none of the diets  have proven to be of sustained benefit and the only manoeuvre available to doctors and patients is bariatric surgery, which has been shown to have a continuing efficacy of up to 10 years.  This can consist of keyhole surgery to insert a band around the stomach or stapling of the stomach, or more invasively re-routing of the intestinal tract.  Each one of these procedures has specific indications and as with all surgery, there is a risk with anaesthesia and complications such as infection.  Your doctor will be in a position to discuss this if you wishon to discuss this if you so wish.


Diet Exercise