Some Dangers of Conventional Health Advice

In “Hope Warshaw’s Pepsi Challenge,” Tom Naughton writes:

In my last post, I commented on a reply from Hope Warshaw  — the diabetes educator (ahem, ahem) — to a reader of this blog in which she pooh-poohed his “experience of one” with using a low-carb diet to manage diabetes. The same reader emailed me that he conducted an “experiment of one” in recent days to compare his blood sugar after drinking a 12-ounce Pepsi versus eating some of the foods Hope Warshaw recommends for diabetics.  Take a look: Food                                   Carbs    BG before    BG at 60 mins 12-ounce Pepsi                   42 g          89                    156 Oatmeal, milk                     40 g          113                   163 Whole wheat bread            48 g           93                    141 Whole wheat toast, milk    36 g         103                    173 Perhaps those numbers don’t look scary to you, but they do to me.  Here’s what Chris Kresser of The Healthy Skeptic wrote about post-meal glucose levels awhile back:

Even the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists is now recommending that post-meal blood sugars never be allowed to rise above 140 mg/dL. Unfortunately, less informed groups like the ADA haven’t caught up with the science.

The consequences of this are severe. Nerve damage occurs as blood sugar rises above 140 mg/dL. Prolonged exposure to blood sugars above 140 mg/dL causes irreversible beta cell loss (the beta cells produce insulin). 1 in 2 “pre-diabetics” get retinopathy, a serious diabetic complication. Cancer rates increase as post-meal blood sugars rise above 160 mg/dL.