References
Introducing a very low carbohydrate diet for a child with type 1 diabetes
Abstract
Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a serious autoimmune disease for which no cure is available. The treatment includes insulin therapy, carbohydrate counting, eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, and maintaining a healthy weight. The goal is to keep blood glucose levels close to normal most of the time to delay or prevent complications. Despite the increase in the use of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors in recent years, the management of type 1 diabetes remains suboptimal in terms of glycaemic control and normal glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) level. This article discusses the case of a child with type 1 diabetes who was successfully treated with a very low-carbohydrate diet, resulting in normal levels of HbA1c and normal blood glucose 95% of the time in a range of 70–180 mg/dL (4.0 mmol/L−10 mmol/L). Therefore, further studies are needed to verify how a very low carbohydrate diet impacts child development.
Diabetes is a dangerous condition that causes millions of deaths every year due to complications (Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) Study Research Group, 2016). In 2017, there were 425 million adults aged 20 to 79 years with type 1 diabetes worldwide, while over 1 million children and adolescents had type 1 diabetes. The expectation is that the number of adults will increase to 629 million by 2045, according to the International Diabetes Federation (Cho et al, 2018).
The World Health Organization (WHO) (2016) has described diabetes as a serious chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas neither produces enough insulin nor uses it well. Without insulin, the body cannot store glucose as fat or convert it into energy. Hence, the glucose accumulates in the blood, causing hyperglycaemia. At high levels, blood glucose is toxic and damages cells and organs, causing serious short- and long-term health complications, including heart attack, stroke, hypertension, blindness and other eye problems, kidney disease, nervous system complications, foot problems sometimes leading to amputations, dental disease, pregnancy complications, mental health problems, such as depression and dementia, and skin issues.
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