The Case for a Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet That Includes Saturated Fats

Filed under: Diet | 3 Comments »

I came across an odd article this week. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic devised a diet for 23 heart patients that was high in saturated fat. Patients (eight of whom were reactive hypoglycemic) ate “forbidden” saturated fats for a year and lost 20% of their body weight. The interesting point about this article for reactive hypoglycemics is that we typically have trouble losing weight (because of the excess availability of carbs in our bodies), and yet the reactive hypoglycemics in this study–all of whom were obese–had no trouble dropping the weight!

Why Atkins Shouldn’t be Part of Your Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet Plan

A diet high in saturated fats was prescribed for the patients (saturated fats in my diet come from eggs, vegetable oils and tropical oils). However, unlike the Atkin’s diet, where carbs are restricted, fruits and non-starchy vegetables were allowed in prescribed amounts at each meal (while portions were recommended, the patients didn’t keep to a specified amount of these). The only other rule the patients had to follow was no starch (no rice, wheat, potatoes etc.).

Although the patients only ate an average of 3 meals a day (600 calories each), they all reported feeling full. After one year, patients with reactive hypoglycemia lost around 20 percent of their body weight–this is despite eating both saturated fats and carbs!

The lesson to be learned? This research is just one piece of evidence to suggest a low-carb (not carb-restricted, like the Atkins, which puts your body into starvation mode) balanced diet that includes saturated fats and carbs is the way to go for losing weight and controlling reactive hypoglycemia.

Reference:
Hays, J. et. al. Effect of a High Saturated Fat and No-Starch Diet on Serum Lipid Subfractions in Patients With Documented
Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease. Mayo Clinic Proceedings November 2003 vol. 78 no. 11 pp. 1331-1336

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3 Comments on “The Case for a Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet That Includes Saturated Fats”

1 River said at 8:31 pm on June 26th, 2009:
Atkins has many stages.
It is very restrictive only in the first stage, where you eat only 20 grams of carbs and restrict fruits and certain veggies. But it lasta only for two weeks. The you switch to the Ongoing Weight Loss stage, where you add 10 grams of carbs at one time slowly. Eventually there the maintenance phase. Most people on Atkins maintenance stages eating around 100 to 130 grams of carbs, mostly from impressive aomunt of veggies and fruits but also from legumes and grains. So overall Atkins diet is similar to the one used in this study, except for the first short stage known as induction.
2 Steph Kenrose said at 8:12 am on June 27th, 2009:
The author’s were pretty clear on this point: their diet was not a high fat, ketogenic Atkins style diet.
3 River said at 3:18 am on June 28th, 2009:
What they are wrong about is considering the Atkins diet ketogenic, while it is only ketogenic for two weeks, in the first aggressive stage suggested only to obese people.