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US doctors are conducting tests on a British man who no longer uses insulin to treat his type 1 diabetes.
Daniel Darkes, from Daventy in Northamptonshire, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes seven years ago. But his recent tests have baffled doctors as his pancreas has shown signs of working properly again. Branded 'Miracle Dan' by his friends, the 30-year-old recently travelled to America so doctors could run tests to further understand what had happened to his body.
Speaking to the Northampton Chronicle and Echo newspaper, he said: "I had numerous tests, about four or five, to confirm the main reason why my pancreas had started producing insulin again.
[...] Mr Darkes says that doctors are now 80 per cent convinced he is cured of the condition, which has never before been reversed. The findings from Mr Darkes' test results are set to be published next week and it is hoped they will help find future treatments for the autoimmune condition.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:40PM (1 child)
A ketogenic diet will probably kill a type 1 diabetic in short order. If a type 1 diabetic wanted to go on a ketogenic diet, they would have to swap out their glucose meter for a ketone meter, and dose their insulin levels based on ketone levels not glucose.
"Ketone bodies accumulate in the plasma in conditions of fasting and uncontrolled diabetes. The initiating event is a change in the molar ratio of glucagon:insulin. Insulin deficiency triggers the lipolytic process in adipose tissue with the result that free fatty acids pass into the plasma for uptake by liver and other tissues."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6122545 [nih.gov]
A type 1 diabetic gets their insulin from a needle/pump - and they usually use blood glucose levels and carb intake to determine how much to inject. A typical diet, and the insulin dose based on these indicators, usually prevents ketogenisis. In a normal person, high ketones result in increased insulin production to keep ketones in check. In theory insulin doses based on ketones could work for a type 1 diabetic, but since insulin is both the trigger and inhibitor for ketone production, it would be trickier.
I have never seen any evidence that a low/zero carb diet fixes the pancreas, and a broken pancreas is the sole cause of type 1 diabetes. (unless you are talking about what broke the pancreas - that is still being investigated) So there is no benefit of a ketogenic diet for type 1 diabetes.
High risk, no benefit - not a winner in my book.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:15PM
I have been a type 1 diabetic for 20 years and there are so many things wrong with what you typed i almost don't know where to begin!
First off I have been on a ketogenic diet for 2 years without a break and my blood sugar numbers have never been better since my initial diagnosis. (this has also been verified by examinations by 4 different doctors.)
The thing you are saying is bad here (but lacked words for) is Ketoacidosis, which is something that in relation to the ketogenic diet and type 1 diabetes I refer to as a "Vampire myth" I call it this because despite having been disproven a billion different ways over many many years, It just refuses to die!
Ketosis is a state where you have high blood sugar, inadequately low insulin and high ketones as a result (Much higher ketones than one would have with nutritional ketosis and much lower insulin than one would have with nutritional ketosis. Insulin inhibits ketosis and above a certain level of insulin ketosis is impossible. Your statement seems to completely ignore this fact that has been known since the 1930s when the Ketogenic diet started being used to treat intractable epilepsy.)
Most people who attempt a ketogenic diet, in my experience think they are ketogenic when they are not. Yes you have to measure ketones and you have to measure blood glucose, but not nearly as closely as you do on a high carb diet, because a high carb diet is like flying a plane in a storm whilst a properly executed ketogenic diet is more like driving on a straight highway on a calm windless day. You don't need insulin for ketones, your body can use them without insulin. You need a certain baseline insulin level to survive and not have random blood sugar spikes to begin with so that is another layer that would confuse what you are saying to someone who is unfamiliar with diabetes or unfamiliar with the ketogenic diet. ( You sound like both)
That being said, there is nothing that I have read that says that Daniel Darkes was on a ketogenic diet. What is the reason for his miraculous recovery? This is why the doctors are examining him in St Louis Missouri. We will have to wait and see what the actual evidence says, that is how this thing called "Science" works.