Question:How strict should my diet be in controlling type 1 or type 2 diabetes?
Answer:Everyone is aware for the most part, I think, that diet and diabetes have a lot to do with each other. The tricky part is in the understanding of exactly how all of that works.
For type 2 diabetes, which is the most common type of diabetes, this is a type where you often see in older people, certainly also in some younger people; but it's a type of diabetes where insulin is produced in the body, it just doesn't work very well. Diet is an extremely important part of our therapy. What we know is people overweight tend to have a situation where their insulin does not work very well at all, and so but by being on a weight-reduction diet, getting weight down to where it should be, people's own insulin can start to work very, very effectively, and that can create much improvement in the blood sugar regulation.
For type 1 diabetes, a slightly different story. Type 1 diabetes relates to people who do not have the ability to make insulin, they have to be treated with insulin injections. For them, the most important part about the diet is making sure that what they eat and the insulin shots that they take are balanced, so that the blood sugar is kept in regulation.