[bruxis]

As a type-1 diabetic, your body no longer produces any insulin at all. This means even without eating any carbohydrates, your blood glucose rates will elevate every hour until you eventually succumb into a coma and shortly after, perish. I use about 34 units of insulin per day, excluding any carbohydrates -- this largely depends on body type as well, some people use much more.

A type-2 diabetic on the other hand, depending on how far their disease has progressed, could potentially ween themselves off insulin entirely if they were to completely abandon carbohydrates. These diets are extremely hard to maintain, especially indefinitely, however.

[kylell]

Yes, sorry, I was thinking at type-2 diabetes, I have a relative with type-2 and doctor told her to cut alcohol, sugar, carbs, etc, type-1 is entirely different, the immune system attacks the pancreas.

[Kayou]

Thanks for the apology, but you got me quite irritated with your first comment. It was like saying to a paraplegic in a wheelchair to man up and hit the gym because there is only so much you can do with a wheelchair... Dreadful.

[bruxis]

Just to add a bit of a positive spin on this: even type-1 diabetics could take measures to both improve their health and reduce the amount of insulin they require.

I consider myself moderately overweight at this point (maybe 10-15kg). If I lost weight, I could reduce the baseline amount of insulin I need every day, thus reducing the amount of insulin overall that I need to pay for.

I also fully acknowledge that, upon getting an insulin pump (16 years ago), I instantly became aware that I had much more freedom to eat what I want, when I wanted and thus, put little effort to cutting back on sugar outside of switching to diet drinks. If I were to switch to a low-carb diet, or no carb (which is admittedly very hard, I've tried), I could further reduce my insulin costs.

Personally (keep in mind these numbers depend highly on each individual), if I got my weight down 10kg, and ate < 100g of carbohydrates per day, I could theoretically only require ~35-40 units of insulin per day. At 40 units, I would only need ~1.35 vials of insulin per month. Ballparking, I'd say my current rate is likely around 2 vials per month.

[Kayou]

You still need to have carbs in your diet, it wouldn't be healthy otherwise. Especially if you practice a sport.

I eat whatever I want (mostly pasta usually) and I need 20 units a day at most. (100 units/ml dosage).

[theorique]

There's no dietary or metabolic need for carbohydrate. The human body can survive and thrive perfectly well with only fat and protein as macronutrients. Practically speaking, doing that is challenging and complicated because most foods are a mix of all three macronutrients.

[Kayou]

But do you need sugar? Or you don't need either sugar nor carbs? It seems strange to me. EDIT: it seems that if you use only your fat, you'll end up producing too much Ketones which leads to Ketoacidosis. Doesn't sound good.

[nunb]

Doctors Phinney and Volek would disagree on the carbs/sport connection.

[Kayou]

Then they should come with an explanation as to why I want to throw up and can't do anything when doing sport with no insulin to use my carbs.

[tsomctl]

No you don't.

Source: The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Phinney and Volek

[nugi]

This is patently untrue.