Can Keto Prevent Pre-Diabetes from Going Into Diabetes?


Pile of Greasy Bacon
Keto can help slow down the
progression of pre-diabetes to diabetes.

Pre-diabetes is becoming a huge world-wide problem.

When I looked up the estimates for diabetes the other day, the stats ranged from 300 to over 500 million people world-wide.

In the U.S. alone, it's thought that 29 million people have diabetes, but what's mind-blowing is that one-quarter of them do not even know they have it.

The stats for pre-diabetes were even worse.


There are 86 million Americans with pre-diabetes, almost three times as many as have regular diabetes, and 90% of them are totally blind to their condition.

Over 76 million people have no clue that they are likely to become diabetic within a few short years.

I found that rather shocking, especially since going Keto can easily keep pre-diabetes from going into diabetes -- if caught soon enough.

Because of the way diabetes and even pre-diabetes is diagnosed, insulin resistance and pre-diabetes are not taken very seriously. At least, that has been my experience with pre-diabetes.

While diabetes specialists do understand that the aim at diagnosis is to keep pre-diabetics from going into full-blown diabetes, the methods typically used to do that often fall short of the goal.

Your doctor is more likely to place you on a moderate-carb diet that is low in fat and calories, even though dietary fat doesn't affect your blood glucose level at all.

The whole "don't go Keto" attitude really confused me when I was first diagnosed, due to my fasting blood glucose being 121 mg/dl.

In those days, fasting glucose was the diagnostic criteria used. There was no A1c test. And with the fasting number so high, the diabetes specialist was quite concerned.

However, if dietary fats don't affect blood glucose, and protein is a good blood-glucose stabilizer, shouldn't I be eating more protein and fats, and fewer sugars and starches?

Wasn't Keto a much better option?

The nurse thought so, but the doctor told me that the amount of carbohydrate I ate didn't really matter.

He said exercise was the key to preventing pre-diabetes from progressing. I was told to eat plenty of chicken breast to keep my fat intake low and start exercising for 3 hours every single day.

In addition, he also promised that if I could lose a mere 10 pounds, I'd magically be cured of the pre-diabetes and it would never progress into full-blown diabetes, provided I stuck with my new exercise routine religiously.

Oh, and make chicken breast my new friend.

I walked out of the office very confused.

I didn't want my pre-diabetes getting worse, and with my Atkins background, I knew that what he was telling me wasn't true. The amount of carbohydrate you eat, once diagnosed with pre-diabetes, does matter. 

And it will matter for the rest of your life.


You can't cure pre-diabetes by losing 10 pounds.

Metabolic and endrocrine defects don't magically reverse themselves like that.

The best you can hope for is to delay or prevent yourself from going into diabetes, but if you revert to your old food habits, the blood glucose will get out of hand again.

I didn't know a lot about diabetes back then. Being hooked up to the internet was relatively new for me. But I did know that being overweight didn't cause my pre-diabetes.

Diabetes occurs when your body is unable to keep your blood glucose level within a safe margin, for whatever reason. And even though pre-diabetes is often still within safe ranges for diabetic complications, pre-diabetes has nothing to do with being overweight.

Being overweight is a symptom of insulin resistance and not the cause.

So with that in mind, I decided to take 100 percent responsibility for my pre-diabetes and went low carb.


Pinterest Image: Shish Kabobs


SugarBusters Diet Helped Me Lose 30 Pounds


In those days, SugarBusters was the Atkins rival. Keto didn't exist, so the options were fewer. SugarBusters was based on the glycemic index, thought to be helpful for pre-diabetics.

The largest difference between SugarBusters and Atkins was that SugarBusters allowed you to have two servings per day of starchy carbs, where Atkins took all of your carbs down to the bone like Keto does.

I was fairly active back then, so the weight came off effortlessly. I was a caregiver for a group home of developmentally challenged adults and we were always on the go. There was very little sit-down time, unless we were writing up our notes or eating a meal.

I honestly don't know how the diet affected my blood glucose level because home monitors were not available back then, without a prescription, and once I'd dropped over 10 pounds, the doctor refused to test my fasting blood glucose level again.

He said there was no need to. I'd fixed my problem by losing the 30 pounds.


Health Issues Can Affect Blood Glucose Levels


When blood glucose monitors became easily available, I started checking my blood sugar and was in for a heck of a surprise. Not only was the doctor wrong about what he'd said, but my blood glucose was worse -- not better.

This was when I was on the Atkins Diet, not SugarBusters, and after we'd moved from California to Utah, so I was pretty frustrated. Something more than carbs was affecting my blood glucose but my new doctor wasn't concerned because my A1C was in the 5.4 range.

Because of that, she said that the neuropathy was idiopathic and my post-meal blood glucose numbers a fluke.

A fluke?

They were way above the 140 mg/dl where nerve damage and other diabetic complications begin, but she insisted that I was the healthiest patient she'd ever had.

Eventually, I came to realize that I had celiac disease and was able to see that every time I ate something with gluten, my blood glucose would go up sky high. So I went off the gluten and my blood glucose came back into the safe zone.

That is, until I tried to eat a zero-carb diet.

Within 2 months on no carbs at all, gluconeogenesis was out of control. Blood glucose was shooting up higher than it ever had, up into diabetic territory. A1c was still normal, so I eventually moved to a maintenance diet to calm everything down.

Surprisingly, raising the carbs to 100 per day allowed the body to return to a more stable condition.

But within a year or two, I had gained 80 pounds. By then, they had finally nailed down the culprit as Graves' disease. Graves' disease increases insulin resistance and puts you into starvation mode, which is why the body totally freaked out when I took all carbs away and started storing fat like crazy.

After 3 months of anti-thyroid hormone, things got back to normal, but the starvation response was so strong, low carb triggered starvation symptoms. To combat the issues, I had to slowly back into carbohydrate restriction and get the body used to living on fewer carbs again.


For me, taking a back-door approach was the only way to return to a diet low enough in carbs to prevent diabetes from progressing.

During this period, I learned that 60 carbs a day was the level where I felt best at, and managed to drop 40 of the 80 pounds I gained during the Graves' disease issue by eating between 60 and 120 carbs a day.

I mostly concentrated on eating just barely enough to keep hunger away, so it was a combo of low carb and low calorie.

Using Keto Now to Prevent Diabetes


When we moved to Texas, I stopped paying attention to how we were eating.

Bad move.

Within a few short months, the neuropathy had resurrected itself again, and my blood glucose was out of control. I only caught the problem because hubby wanted me to check his blood glucose level, due to throbbing pain in his feet.

My numbers were so high, I literally went into shock.

It was borderline diabetes: 198 mg/dl! And that was after having coffee with 2 tablespoons of a sweetened-flavored coffee creamer, 3 strips of bacon, and 2 fried eggs.

Instantly, I dropped my carbs to a Keto level, and lost about 6 pounds the first month.

But it was difficult to get my mind in the game.

Catching the flu didn't help and resulted in a weight-loss stall. I don't know what the meds did to my blood glucose. I honestly didn't check until I was off the cough medicine.

Since then, the mind has been reluctant to give up the flavored coffee creamer, so I switched to a sugar-free variety, less than 1 carb per tablespoon.

I noticed that the pounds crept back up again to over 200 pounds just after making the switch, and my blood glucose numbers were almost as bad as with the sweetened kind of creamer.

My feet and knee started giving me problems again, as well.

Checking out the ingredients of the coffee creamer, I noticed that despite the container saying sugar-free, corn syrup and maltodextrin are the second and third ingredients on the label.

Although Maltodextrin is gluten free, it is the worst ingredient you can consume if you have pre-diabetes or diabetes. It's commonly found in sugar substitutes and other refined products as a filler.

On the glycemic index, maltodextrin is like 120 where real table sugar is only 60. It's bad news.

So today, I'm dumping the creamer down the drain.

I stopped drinking coffee in the morning a couple of days ago, and my blood glucose is down to a realistic 126 mg/dl after a low-carb breakfast, so I'll be giving up the coffee completely from now on.

I just don't like heavy cream and sugar substitute in coffee. If I can't do the flavored creamers, I'd rather not drink coffee it at all.

Weight was back under 200 pounds again this morning, and my feet and knee feel better.

I've really gotten off to a slow start, but at least I'm beginning to understand that I might be looking at a 20-carb life instead of a 60-carb life from now on.

The Pre-Diabetes Path


The pre-diabetes path for me has been long. It's been decades since I was first diagnosed, so I can definitely say that Keto and carbohydrate restriction can delay diabetes.

So far, I've managed to escape a diabetes diagnosis by controlling my carbs to some degree, but whether I'll be able to continue doing that, or not, I honestly don't know.

Today, at Induction level of carbs, my blood glucose levels are not normal, but they are well below the danger zone for diabetic complications. While hubby is optimistic for me and thinks the body just needs time to heal, I've decided to not set up any ideals that might disappoint me in the future.

That way, if I'm looking at a 20-carb future, I can more easily cope with life such as it is.

Vickie Ewell Bio



Comments