An absolute must read for diabetics or care takers

A tour de force for the case for low carb diets, especially for diabetics, but also for everyone else. I am not diabetic, but I stopped drinking soda after re reading this book. My daughter is diabetic and this book highlights all the questionable advise we have received from her endo.

5 people found this helpful

Ok for Type 1's, not so much for Type 2's

Any additional comments?

I have been reading up a lot on diet and nutrition as it relates to our health lately and purchased this one after seeing a lot of people recommend it, especially for Type 1 diabetics. Based on everything else I've been learning, I have mixed opinions about it.

For a Type 1 diabetic, this can be a very resourceful book. Most of it is instructional, and devoted to using insulin and other drugs along with a low carb diet to normalize blood sugars. No, this isn't the typical "eat whatever and cover it with insulin" advice. The book is about using diet first to maximize blood sugar control as your body allows, then using small doses of drugs to make up for the now smaller spikes. For a Type 1 diabetic, this makes sense.

Dr. Bernstein does touch on the much more common Type 2 diabetes with the same approach, which perplexes me some because it's an entirely different mechanism that causes high blood sugar. Type 1 is a lack of insulin. Type 2 is resistance to insulin. Much of what I've been learning points to being able to stop and even reverse Type 2 diabetes through diet alone, specifically a low carb, high fat ketogenic diet. For these people, Dr. Bernstein's methods may improve their conditions but I feel it's not enough of an improvement.

What's interesting is that while the ketogenic diet is not mentioned by name, he does mention its positive effects multiple times with the point being not to fear fats. He also mentions gluconeogenesis several times, which is the conversion of proteins to glucose, but only in the context of not eating enough and your body going through this process to use organ and muscle tissue for fuel when not eating. He does give protein requirements for his dietary plan, but does not directly caution that eating too much protein also causes blood sugar issues. The proteins that can't be utilized are converted to glucose, can trigger an insulin response (albeit not as much as with carbs), and thus prolong your issues if you're Type 2.

My guess is that Dr. Bernstein is either unfamiliar or uneducated on the principles of a ketogenic diet. Such a diet converts your body from using glucose as your body's primary source of energy, to using fat. All throughout the book, Dr. Bernstein speaks as if you can only burn glucose for energy and rarely makes any reference to burning fat. He also goes on to cautioning about seeing ketones (a byproduct of burning fat) in the urine and ketoacidosis. Yes, that is a very serious issue, but is not a problem on a ketogenic diet with high ketones and low blood sugar levels (those being controlled naturally or with insulin).

I can appreciate Dr. Bernstein's background, especially his story about how his engineering mindset helped him research a better way for his Type 1 diabetes. I just personally think that his methods are not necessarily the best for most diabetics.

Another big issue with the book is he only addresses what he knows works in his practice. Since he doesn't talk about the ketogenic approach, I can't tell if he doesn't believe in it or just doesn't know much about it. So that, plus the instruction manual style writing in most of it, leads me to not suggest it overall. If you're a Type 1 diabetic and want to check it out, I'd recommend finding a physical copy of the book for better referencing all the different calculations and such he goes over. Listening to them as an audiobook is challenging to say the least. To be honest, I skipped much of the book for this reason.

The best part of this book is the appendices. There, he goes more in depth on the sciences behind his methods and cities numerous studies that are of interest to those considering a low carb diet. Even high vs low fat diets. So if you're one of those people that just want to learn every last morsel of info on a given subject, the appendices of this book do offer some decent information.

20 people found this helpful

type 1 Pioneer

did what no one do and became a doctor so that people could hear him. every diabetic owes him a significant thanks for dedicating his life and career to normal blood sugars

3 people found this helpful

Best audio book

This book has been the best advice I have received. Strongly recommend getting this audio book.

7 people found this helpful

I highly recommend. this book.

Thanks for offering this wonderful and informative audio book. Rvery diabetic should read this. It's very up-to-date on diet tips and how to control your blood sugar. An excellent book

4 people found this helpful

Most Detailed Diabetes Book PERIOD!!!

You can literally feel Dr. Bernstein's passion for saving diabetics with each word read of his book. Dr. Bernstein is very intentional about his approach to diabetes. I learned more in the first three chapters than what I have learned from 5 books on the subject of diabetes. Ultimately, I learned how to live a longer life without complications from diabetes!!! For this I am forever grateful and will share his book with everyone!!!

1 person found this helpful

Educational

Better understanding of diabetics and how to handle it. Learned things I never heard about before reading this book. Story is well written and narrated.

1 person found this helpful

waste of money

This book was so terrible. Please don't waste your money or credits. Not at all what I thought it would be.

Zero Carbs ?

Best info I've found on lowering chances of Diabetes and Heart Problems.
This of course might have a lot to do with the fact that his advise is from 86 years of serviving being Type 1 Diabetic :)

This is more of a cook book

Waste of time, I don't need a cook book but instead I was looking for material to help with my A1C