Whenever we eat carbs the glucose in our blood increases as it should, the body uses insulin to help bring glucose from the blood into cells for energy.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes especially type 2 is a condition when you develop insulin resistance and your muscle cells do not respond to insulin. In this, they have impaired insulin receptors, and this is often due to obesity, which is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Studies have shown that there is a genetic predisposition as well for type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is when you have insulin deficiency and it manifests in childhood while type 2 diabetes manifests in middle-aged and obese people.
How can I control my diabetes with a ketogenic diet?
In a diabetic person, insulin is not working so a high carb diet usually leads to a spike in blood glucose level which is termed as HbA1c as your body cannot use the carbs effectively.
Limiting the carbs is the idea that the keto diet revolves upon so by limiting the carbs you can certainly control your blood glucose/HbA1C levels therefore it can benefit people with pre-existing diabetes.
Obesity is a major risk factor for diabetes, with a strictly followed standard ketogenic diet you can end up losing excess weight so keto diet can help reduce the risk of diabetes in people who do not have it or in those who are susceptible to diabetes.
Ketogenic diet and its impact on medications for diabetes.?
We have till now learned that keto diet helps reduce blood sugar levels and due to this it can have some effects on medications for diabetes. People who have type 2 diabetes take insulin as medication, A ketogenic diet took on top of insulin can result in severe hypoglycemia which means low blood sugar.
Therefore, an expert opinion of your consultant should always be taken when considering going on a keto diet while on medications for diabetes.
The keto diet can lower blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity, reduce dependency on medication, improves good cholesterol or HDL without adding to low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol and drops blood insulin levels.