Daily BS #4 10/15/21

My Eating Pattern, Time Restricted Eating, Statins & Diabetes

I’ll jump right in.

Topics Today:

1. My Eating Pattern Hint: 16:8 (at least)

2. Study: Time Restricted Eating (TRE) and Type 2 Diabetes

3. Statins & Type 2 Diabetes

My Preferred Eating Pattern and Why

88% of adults in the US are metabolically unhealthy or have metabolic syndrome. Additionally, approximately 2/3 of the US population are obese or overweight.

Therefore, this newsletter directly applies to most people… not ‘just’ those with a diabetes or pre-diabetes diagnosis.

When I talk about ‘eating pattern’, I’m talking about my ‘eating window’, or to phrase it another way… ‘eating pattern’ to me is not only when I eat but how often.

My preferred eating window is noon to 6 pm. This is often described as an 18:6 window with 18 hours of ‘fasting’ and eating during the noon to 6pm ‘window’.

But for me it’s a little different because I only want to eat twice … at noon and then before 6pm.

Reality is often different, but that’s my daily goal.

Why?

I’m a diabetic, whose pancreas ‘quit’ working, requiring me to take (4) insulin shots per day at diagnosis. I weaned off insulin utilizing a low carb diet soon after diagnosis but I still don’t want to over work my pancreas. Therefore I prefer to eat as few times a day as possible… twice usually.

I believe that resting my pancreas, while maintaining truly normal blood sugar is therapeutic . I also believe that eating every hour or two is THE WORST THING anyone can do for their long term health… but especially harmful to diabetics.

Grazing (eating off and on all day) is not the best idea to optimize health, especially if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic for a variety of reasons, including roller-coaster blood sugars, with soaring highs and crashing lows.

In this post on my main DW site, “Diabetics Should Graze?“ , I criticize a certified diabetes educator who promotes ‘grazing’ for diabetics… literally instructing them to eat ‘off and on’ all day… the worst possible advice to diabetics!

Why is grazing less than optimal?

Especially if you are a typical diabetic whose blood sugars are typically above 100 mg/dl (5.3 mmol/l), you are working (over-working) your pancreas 16 hours a day… and often due to elevated blood sugars at bedtime, you are overworking your blood sugars 24 hours a day.

Then people ‘restart’ the process with a high carb breakfast soon after waking, and so another high carb, high insulin, harmful day begins…

This is a segway to the next topic.

Time Restricted Feeding Study

Official title of the study gives away the story.

“Time-restricted feeding improves blood glucose and insulin sensitivity in overweight patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomised controlled trial”.

From the title we know that ‘time-restricted feeding’ improves blood sugar levels, increases insulin sensitivity in overweight type 2 diabetics.

What is “Time-Restricted Feeding’ (TRF)

For some it’s choosing to eat during certain times. An example of TRF is eating eating between Noon and 6 PM (as is my preferred eating times).

For others, it’s choosing to wait a certain amount of time between meals. That’s really at the heart of my preferred window, I want to wait at least 16 hours after dinner, before I eat again. Also, I prefer not to eat after 6 PM.

Hopefully I have not muddied the waters and you have a good idea of what is meant by “Time Restricted Feeding” (TRF).

The Study

Study subjects were restricted to ONLY eating between 8 AM and 6 PM. Or phrased another way, the test subjects ate during a 10 hour window starting at 8 AM. The other 14 hours a day, the people would ‘fast’.

“Conclusion: These results suggest that 10-h restricted feeding improves blood glucose and insulin sensitivity, results in weight loss, reduces the necessary dosage of hypoglycaemic drugs and enhances quality of life. It can also offer cardiovascular benefits by reducing atherosclerotic lipid levels.“

The 10 hour eating window:

• improved blood sugar

• insulin sensitivity

• resulted in weight loss

• reduced diabetes drug dosage

• enhanced quality of life

Sounds like it’s a win/win/win!!!

With results like this… why doesn’t every doctor, ever nutritionist and every diabetes educator promote ‘time restricted eating’?

I report … and you decide.

The ‘diet’ in this time restricted study

The test subjects and the control group all ate about 50% of their calories from carbohydrates… that’s high carb.

If the people following the restricted eating window all ate a truly ‘low carb’ diet, I am sure the results and improvements… would be EVEN better.

Again I ask, “Can this diet and lifestyle change benefit you?”

There’s only one way to find out… give it try for 30 days!! If you decide to do it and want help, comment or send me an email!

Statins and Diabetes

Spoiler Alert: This study adds to previous studies

I’ll dig deeper into statins in future posts, but for now I’ll just say that some studies show little to no effect of statins on ‘cholesterol’ or heart disease.

Other studies show that ‘all-cause mortality’ increases when people take statins. I don’t know about you …. but if a drug doesn’t decrease all-cause mortality, there has to be compelling evidence to take it.

I don’t see that evidence with statins.

From the study:

“Statin use was associated with diabetes progression in patients with diabetes—statin users had a higher likelihood of insulin treatment initiation, developing significant hyperglycemia, experiencing acute glycemic complications, and being prescribed an increased number of glucose-lowering medication classes.”

Wow … talk about a damning statement!

The effect of statins is only positive for the drug companies! Statins were associated with:

• developing significant hyperglycemia or elevated blood sugar levels

• higher likelihood of requiring insulin

• experiencing diabetic complications

• being prescribed an increased number of glucose-lowering drugs!!!!

Also from the study:

The risk-benefit ratio of statin use in patients with diabetes should take into consideration its metabolic effects.

I did take the risk-benefit ratio into consideration… and I decided to discontinue all of my prescribed drugs, including statins.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes I was prescribed a diabetes drug (Actos) , a high blood sugar or hypertension drug (Lisinopril), and a drug for lowering cholesterol (Vytorin). Vytorin is a statin… which I took for about 1 1/2 months.

I weaned off all of the drugs in about 1 1/2 months… and I’ve never looked back. I will NEVER take another statin again… ever.

Important Note: I am not suggesting “YOU” should not take a statin, I am saying that based on all the available evidence, I decided to discontinue taking a statin because I:

• eat a very low carb, gluten & grain free, low inflammatory diet

• exercise most days a week

• obtain daily sun and/or supplement vitamin D3

• avoid ‘seed oils’, no corn, sunflower, safflower, soy, peanut, etc oils

I am suggesting that you try eating, playing and exercising like I do… for 30 days.

See for yourself if a more natural way of living… will benefit you!

In Closing

My body and mind has definitely benefited from a very low carb diet, ‘time restricted eating’, and the ditching of statins.

Just like the study participants above, I too lost weight, improved blood sugar, weaned off all medications, and enhanced my quality of life.

NO ONE should ‘graze’ regardless of your diet… in my opinion.

This is especially true if you have diabetes, or are metabolically unhealthy… and 88% of the US is metabolically unhealthy, so this probably means YOU!

Until next time my friends… wishing you all truly normal blood sugars!