If you are diabetic then it is more than likely that the advice you have been given revolves around maximising so-called complex or low glycemic index carbohydrates (those that cause your blood sugar to rise fast) and reducing fat in your diet.  This is because diabetics have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, which is widely believed to be caused by raised cholesterol levels from fat in the diet.

However, studies increasingly show that the fat-raises-cholesterol-and-causes-heart-disease theory is wrong, and that carbohydrates rather than fat cause the damage that leads to heart disease.  So why is it, then, that low carbohydrate diets are not recommended to diabetics?  The fewer carbohydrates that diabetics eat, the lower their requirement for oral hypoglycemic drugs or insulin to normalise their blood sugar levels.  Why encourage carbohydrates when it is the carbohydrates that are not only the immediate problem, but the main cause of the long term complications of diabetes, as well?

The trouble is, it takes many years for long-held beliefs to change in medical and government health advice circles.  This is especially the case where these beliefs are constantly reinforced by the drug companies and agricultural and food manufacturing industries, who have much to lose should healthy eating advice change from the status quo.

Nutritional medicine experts such as Dr Richard Bernstein, Dr Robert Atkins(well know for Atkins Diet) and Weston Price have long maintained that type 2 diabetics can often be cured and taken off their diabetes medications completely by following a low carb diet, but they have largely been ignored by mainstream medicine.  Now, however, the weight of scientific evidence supporting what they have been saying is fast becoming overwhelming. 

Although this is unlikely to translate into official changes in dietary advice for diabetics for some time to come, many diabetics may now feel there is sufficient information on the issues around low fat versus low carb diets for them to make their own informed choice about the diet they should follow.  It is important, though, to carry out any changes in diet in consultation with your doctor.