[beauzero]

Just anecdotal. Was T2 and getting kidney stones every two or three months (cause not related but treatment was). Cut out oxalates which restricted diet. Monitored sugar 3-5 times daily. Switched to carnivore diet + onions and mushrooms and went on Metformin. All at the same time. Did this for 2.5 months with no additional exercise. This dropped me down below T2 level. Went off Metformin and am maintaining with same daily testing. Off carnivore for paleo minus anything with oxalates after the 2.5 months strict carnivore.

Strict carnivore for me was steak, hamburger, stew meat fried in butter, mushrooms and onions in butter, bacon, and very sharp cheddar (only on burgers or raw). Eat every bit of gristle and fat. It is very hard to get enough fat.

Brain fog lasted for 10-11 days. Felt fantastic after that.

To keep your carnivore costs down I would recommend stew meat from Costco fried with onions and mushrooms when you can't stand steak or plain burgers.

This has worked for me for the last 6 months. I have no idea what it will be long term. Maybe someone will find something useful in it.

[thrwwyfrobvrsns]

Sumo wrestlers kind of fascinate me in this regard. It's very rare to find a professional who is diabetic, even though they eat one big carb-heavy meal a day and are morbidly obese. IIRC, this is explained by their low visceral fat levels, which are driven by high adiponectin levels that are themselves driven by their intense workouts and consistent sleep habits. Their high subcutaneous fat proportion is actually thought to be protective. T2D catches up to them after they retire and stop exercising and sleeping well.

Their experience touches on 3 factors:

>Exercise volume (which, according to newer research, should be spread out over the course of the day)

>Diet (which should be focused not just on maintaining steady, low blood sugar levels, but on dietary factors that encourage subcutaneous rather than visceral fat deposition)

>Sleep quality

The last, I think, is extremely undervalued. My father developed T2 in his 30s, and it progressed consistently until he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and received treatment. Around the same time, his work schedule finally became more reasonable after a career of early mornings and late nights. This is someone who had to pass annual physical fitness exams for his job, cooked and ate relatively healthily, etc. I'm convinced it was the years of poor sleep that set him up for insulin resistance.

[nextos]

Check the work of David Unwin from NHS, who has reversed T2D in many patients using dietary interventions: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/blog/2015/08/dr-david-unwin-publi...

This publication is a good starting point to his approach. Early time-restricted eating of low sugar and low starch meals is the key: https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/bmjnph/early/2023/01/02/bm...

[nradov]

Other researchers have also achieved T2D remission in many patients through nutritional ketosis (carbohydrate restriction).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13300-018-0373-9

[kshacker]

And here I am following a WFPB diet with high carbs and reversing my A1C + some other markers.

My philosophy is that many diets work, you just can not have a cocktail. Our body is not a hybrid car. It takes time to switch/

Choose what you can live with - high carb, low carb, keto - and stay focused.

[nradov]

There is of course substantial variability in individual patient response to treatments. But a high-carb diet is unlikely to work out well for someone who is already insulin resistant. If that's the only diet that they can live with then their life is likely to be drastically shortened.

As for plant based versus animal based diets, we don't have any high quality RCTs to indicate that one or the other has a different impact on insulin resistance (assuming the same macros). So that's unlikely to be directly relevant for most patients, except to the extent that it impacts ease of living permanently maintaining carb restriction.

[kshacker]

Sure but 1) there are many of us who are helped by WFPB and 2) Whole Foods plant based != plant based. High carbs was just my paraphrasing of what we do - lots of greens, lots of raw, elimination of meat, oil and sugar. And a bunch of other things. And while it helps reverse a few things, I agree it may not work in some or many scenarios.

[supertofu]

I'm WFPB (plus salmon and eggs) myself. I grew up as a vegetarian and the carnivore diet is too unpalatable to me, even though it would probably work. WFPB can work to stave off T2D, but at least for me, I have to be vigilant about my choices and always pair carbs with proteins and fats.

[tracker1]

I've found I do best with a very similar diet... mostly meat and eggs, some cheese and sometimes onions, mushrooms etc. I notice that some starchy foods hit me worse than others. Legumes are pretty bad on how I feel, and spike me to no end. Similar with wheat products. Corn, rice and potatoes spike my glucose, but I don't feel physically ill the next day like with many other foods.

It sucks, and I wind up cheating 2-3x a week (I live with people that eat different than I do).

[itchyouch]

I like to add that the reason why the carnivore diet seems to work really well is a couple of things.

- compliance is straightforward

- on average, will tick all the boxes for nutritional needs. (ie. vegans eating only oreos would not be very healthy, while vegans eating 5 colors a day would be far better off)

[lazyasciiart]

What have you used as a source for low oxalate foods? My husband has to avoid them for the same reason but it seems like superficially reliable sources disagree on which foods to avoid.

[hombre_fatal]

Sounds like a good way to trade one problem for another.

[beauzero]

Which is why I went paleo after 2.5 months minus oxalates. I honestly have concerns about stomach cancer (family tree) and it allowed my to substitute coconut oil for a lot of the animal based fat I needed to consume for those 2.5 months. It is hard to do 20% of your calories in animal fat (male) and 30% (female) to maintain hormone levels. I don't know if those are hard and fast rules but they were the generic guidelines given to my by my PA.

[nradov]

Which problem?