The Optimal Diet for Type 2 Diabetes

Now that I have your attention ...

Guess what?  There is no single optimal diet to treat/manage the disease.  I don't often do short bookmarking posts here much anymore, but I thought this paper that I found down a PubMed rabbit hole the other day was worthy of more than just a link in the library.  

Is there an optimal diet for patients with type 2 diabetes? Yes, the one that works for them!

Most importantly there is evidence that adherence to any given dietary approach is more important than the macronutrient prescription. So the best diet for those with type 2 diabetes is the one that works for them, and critically the one that they can maintain in the long term.

How many times, tucked somewhere in the discussion of the latest diet comparison clinical trial, or mumbled by the researcher in the press conference, have we heard that in the end, adherence was the single best predictor of whatever-the-heck-health-weight-measure-improvements regardless of assigned intervention.

There's nothing super ground breaking in this article, but I think it's worth a read.  Ultimately, diabetes is a disease of relative insulin deficiency and excessive endogenous glucose production.  Unless your diet changes pancreatic function for the better, and it's a diet you can live with, you may well end up worse off than if you did nothing at all.  (Note the use of the word may). 

One other comment if I may here, and that is in regards to labeling your diet.  I understand this, been there, done that.  But with all of this redefining going on with paleo to where paleos are eating anything and anything you eat can make you paleo, it's time to perhaps pick some of the better strategies from various approaches and apply them to yourself.  Protein satiates?  There's no reason a high protein diet has to be low carb or high fat, it can just as easily be the opposite.  Olive oil does good things?  Anyone can eat olive oil, even someone on a "low fat" diet.  Ditto avocados.  There's nothing about the avocado that makes it off limits on any diet.  There's also no need to be all-or-nothing.  Take dairy.  If you tolerate it, you can eat it, but if you like a glass of milk have one, or drink some each day or drink it on Sundays.  There's no need to impose rules because you are doing some detox or have "started XYZ diet".