Topic Index

Understanding Hunger and Satiety Signals — Appetite is your body's complex system of hunger and satiety signals, regulated by hormones like insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. For people with diabetes or insulin resistance, these signals often become disrupted—high insulin levels can block leptin (the satiety hormone), leading to constant hunger even when the body has plenty of stored energy. Understanding how different foods and eating patterns affect appetite is key to managing weight and blood sugar without feeling constantly deprived.

Cellular Self-Cleaning and Renewal — Autophagy is your body's natural cellular recycling system—a process where cells break down and remove damaged components, clear out toxic proteins, and generate energy from their own parts. This 'self-eating' mechanism becomes especially active during fasting periods and plays a crucial role in cellular health, disease prevention, and healthy aging. Understanding autophagy helps explain many of the metabolic benefits associated with fasting and low-carb lifestyles.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor — BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) is a protein that acts like fertilizer for your brain—it promotes the growth of new neurons, strengthens existing connections, and protects brain cells from damage. Low BDNF levels are linked to depression, cognitive decline, and neurodegenerative diseases. Interestingly, fasting, ketosis, and exercise all boost BDNF production, which may explain some of the cognitive benefits people experience with low-carb lifestyles and intermittent fasting.

Blood pressure measures the force of blood against artery walls, recorded as two numbers: systolic (during heartbeats) over diastolic (between beats), like 120/80 mmHg. High blood pressure often goes hand-in-hand with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Interestingly, when people reduce carbohydrates and insulin levels drop, blood pressure often improves naturally—sometimes requiring medication adjustments within days. This connection between insulin and blood pressure is rarely discussed but well-documented in research.

Blood Glucose (BG) — Blood glucose (BG) refers to the amount of sugar in your bloodstream, measured in mmol/L (mg/dL). For people without diabetes, blood sugar stays between 3.9-5.3 mmol/L (70-95 mg/dL) most of the time. The goal of diabetes management is to keep blood sugar as close to this range as possible—and research shows that reducing carbohydrates is one of the most effective ways to achieve stable blood sugar levels.

Body Mass Index — Body Mass Index (BMI) is a simple calculation using height and weight (kg/m²) to categorize body size. While widely used by doctors, BMI has serious limitations—it doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat, ignores body composition, and can misclassify metabolic health. A person can have 'normal' BMI but be metabolically unhealthy, or have high BMI while being metabolically fit. Waist circumference and metabolic markers like insulin sensitivity are often better indicators of health.

Tracking Carbohydrates for Blood Sugar Management — Carb counting is a method of tracking the carbohydrate content in foods to help manage blood sugar levels and calculate insulin doses. While it's been the cornerstone of diabetes management for decades, research shows that even experienced carb counters frequently miscalculate by 20 grams or more—enough to cause significant blood sugar swings. Many people find that drastically reducing carbohydrate intake (very low-carb or keto) makes diabetes management simpler and more predictable than trying to perfectly match insulin to carbs.

An Alternative Theory of Obesity and Weight Gain — The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model challenges the traditional 'calories in, calories out' view of weight gain. It proposes that highly processed carbohydrates drive obesity not just through excess calories, but by triggering hormonal responses—particularly elevated insulin—that promote fat storage and block fat burning. This model suggests that what you eat (and how it affects your hormones) may be more important than simply how much you eat, which helps explain why some people struggle with weight despite eating less and exercising more.

Understanding Sugars, Starches, and Their Effects — Carbohydrates are one of three main macronutrients, broken down into glucose (sugar) in your digestive system. They range from simple sugars to complex starches and fiber, but all digestible carbs eventually become glucose in your bloodstream—the difference is mainly in how quickly. While carbohydrates provide quick energy, they also trigger insulin release and can cause blood sugar spikes, especially problematic for people with diabetes or insulin resistance. Understanding how different carbohydrates affect your blood sugar helps you make informed choices about which ones to include, limit, or avoid in your diet.

Continuous Glucose Monitor — Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGM) measure blood sugar every few minutes throughout the day and night, providing a complete picture of glucose patterns rather than just snapshots from finger pricks. CGMs reveal how different foods affect your blood sugar, show overnight patterns, and calculate time-in-range—making them invaluable tools for understanding and managing diabetes. Many people discover they respond very differently to foods than expected once they start using a CGM.

Understanding Blood Lipids and Heart Health — Cholesterol is an essential molecule your body needs for hormone production, cell membranes, and fighting infections—your liver produces most of it regardless of what you eat. The traditional view of 'good' (HDL) and 'bad' (LDL) cholesterol oversimplifies a complex picture. LDL and HDL aren't actually cholesterol—they're transport particles carrying cholesterol and other substances. Research increasingly shows that particle number and size matter more than total cholesterol levels, and that triglycerides, insulin levels, and inflammation may be better predictors of heart disease risk than LDL cholesterol alone.

Long-Term Health Conditions and Metabolic Health — Chronic diseases are long-term health conditions that often share common metabolic roots—including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, fatty liver disease, and many others. Research increasingly shows these conditions aren't separate problems but different manifestations of underlying metabolic dysfunction, particularly insulin resistance and chronic inflammation. Many chronic diseases that were once considered irreversible can be significantly improved or even put into remission through lifestyle changes that address these root causes, especially dietary interventions that reduce insulin levels and restore metabolic health.

Diabetes complications are the long-term damage caused by years of elevated blood sugar and insulin levels—including heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, nerve damage, vision loss, and amputations. Both high blood sugar and chronically high insulin contribute to this damage, which is why addressing insulin resistance matters as much as controlling glucose. These complications develop gradually but are largely preventable by maintaining blood sugar and insulin close to normal levels. Research consistently shows that lower average blood sugar correlates with fewer complications, with no threshold where the benefits stop.

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension — The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet is a conventional eating plan designed to lower blood pressure, emphasizing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy while limiting sodium and saturated fat. While DASH has been promoted as heart-healthy and is often recommended for people with diabetes, some research suggests that very low-carb approaches may be twice as effective as DASH for improving blood pressure, blood sugar control, and weight loss in people with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The comparison highlights ongoing debates about optimal dietary approaches for metabolic health.

Understanding Fats in Your Diet — Dietary fat is an essential macronutrient that your body needs for hormone production, vitamin absorption, cell membranes, and brain function. Despite decades of being vilified, research increasingly shows that natural fats—including saturated fats from whole foods—are not the villains they were made out to be. The real concern lies with highly processed seed oils and trans fats. For people following low-carb or keto diets, fat becomes the primary fuel source, and eating adequate fat is crucial for satiety and energy. Understanding the difference between natural fats from meat, fish, eggs, and dairy versus industrial seed oils helps you make healthier choices.

Official Nutrition Recommendations and Their Limitations — Dietary guidelines are official nutrition recommendations issued by government health authorities, typically emphasizing whole grains, limiting saturated fat, and recommending 45-60% of calories from carbohydrates. However, these guidelines often lag behind emerging research and have remained largely unchanged despite rising rates of obesity and diabetes since their introduction in the 1970s. Critics point to potential conflicts of interest from food industry funding and note that the guidelines may not be optimal for people with insulin resistance or metabolic disorders. Understanding both official recommendations and their limitations helps you make informed decisions about your health.

Strategic Periods Without Food for Metabolic Health — Fasting is deliberately going without food for extended periods, allowing your body to shift from using recently eaten food to burning stored energy. After about 12-16 hours without eating, your body depletes its glucose stores and begins burning fat more efficiently, while also triggering beneficial processes like autophagy (cellular cleanup) and increased insulin sensitivity. Intermittent fasting—cycling between eating and fasting periods—can be a powerful tool for managing diabetes, reducing insulin resistance, and promoting weight loss. Combined with a low-carb or keto diet, fasting becomes easier and more effective, as stable blood sugar means less hunger and fewer cravings during fasting periods.

A feasibility study tests whether an intervention is practical and achievable in real-world conditions before committing to large, expensive trials. These studies examine whether people can actually follow the protocol, if the measurements work as intended, and whether it's worth pursuing further research. While feasibility studies aren't designed to prove effectiveness, they often reveal important insights about what works in practice versus theory—and can show promising early results that justify larger trials.

The Hunger Hormone — Ghrelin is often called the 'hunger hormone'—produced primarily in your stomach, it signals to your brain that it's time to eat. Ghrelin levels rise before meals and drop after eating, but this system can become dysregulated by frequent eating, processed foods, and poor sleep. Interestingly, ghrelin levels adapt to your eating patterns: if you regularly eat at certain times, ghrelin rises in anticipation. During fasting, ghrelin initially increases but then stabilizes, which is why hunger often comes in waves rather than continuously intensifying. Understanding ghrelin helps explain why eating patterns matter as much as what you eat.

Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 — GLP-1 (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) is a natural hormone produced in your gut when you eat. It helps regulate blood sugar by stimulating insulin release when needed, suppressing glucagon (which raises blood sugar), slowing digestion to make you feel full longer, and reducing appetite through signals to the brain. Your body naturally produces GLP-1, but the levels drop quickly. Medications like Ozempic and Wegovy are synthetic versions designed to last much longer in your body, amplifying these effects for weight loss and diabetes management. Interestingly, certain foods and eating patterns—particularly protein-rich meals and potentially ketogenic diets—can naturally boost your body's own GLP-1 production.

Measuring How Foods Affect Blood Sugar — The Glycemic Index (GI) is a scale that ranks carbohydrate-containing foods by how quickly they raise blood sugar levels compared to pure glucose. High-GI foods (white bread, sugar, white rice) cause rapid spikes, while low-GI foods (most vegetables, nuts) produce gentler rises. However, the GI has significant limitations: it doesn't account for portion size (Glycemic Load does), it measures single foods eaten alone (rarely how we eat), and it can be misleading—some high-GI foods like watermelon have little actual carbohydrate. For people with diabetes or insulin resistance, focusing on total carbohydrate amount and choosing whole, unprocessed foods often matters more than obsessing over GI rankings.

In-Depth Resources for Patients and Professionals — Comprehensive guides offering detailed information and practical strategies for managing diabetes and metabolic health. These include guides for talking with your doctor about dietary approaches, detailed resources for healthcare professionals interested in low-carb interventions, step-by-step guides for implementing lifestyle changes, and in-depth explanations of complex topics. Unlike quick tips or overview articles, these guides provide thorough, actionable information you can reference and return to as you navigate your health journey.

HbA1c is a blood test that reflects your average blood sugar over 2–3 months

High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol — HDL (High-Density Lipoprotein) is often called 'good cholesterol,' but this oversimplifies what it actually is. HDL isn't cholesterol itself—it's a transport particle that carries cholesterol and other substances from your tissues back to your liver for recycling or disposal. Higher HDL levels are generally associated with lower heart disease risk, which is why it earned the 'good' label. Low HDL (below 1.0-1.3 mmol/L) combined with high triglycerides is a strong indicator of insulin resistance and metabolic problems. Low-carb and keto diets typically raise HDL levels significantly, which is one marker of improved metabolic health.

Protecting Your Heart and Blood Vessels — Heart health is especially important for people with diabetes, who face 2-4 times higher risk of heart disease than others. High and fluctuating blood sugar damages blood vessels over time, while chronically elevated insulin contributes to high blood pressure and stiff arteries. Managing blood sugar, reducing insulin resistance, and addressing inflammation are key to protecting your heart. Emerging research challenges some conventional wisdom about cholesterol and saturated fat, suggesting that metabolic health markers like triglycerides and insulin levels may be more important predictors of heart disease risk.

Low blood sugar — When the blood sugar is below the normal range (3.9 mmol/l or 70mg/dl)

Inflammation is the body's immune response to injury or threat, but chronic low-grade inflammation damages tissues over time and drives many modern diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. High blood sugar and high insulin both promote inflammation, creating a vicious cycle. Research shows that reducing carbohydrates often leads to dramatic drops in inflammatory markers like CRP and IL-6—sometimes by 40-50% within months. This reduction in inflammation may explain many of the health improvements people experience beyond just better blood sugar.

Reduced sensitivity to insulin — A condition where your body's cells don't respond to insulin as they should, which often leads to type 2 diabetes

Ketogenic Diet and Nutritional Ketosis — Keto (short for ketogenic) is a very low-carbohydrate diet—typically under 20-50g of carbs per day—that shifts your body's primary fuel source from glucose to fat. When carbohydrate intake is low enough, your liver produces ketones from fat, which your brain and body can use for energy. This metabolic state, called nutritional ketosis, is completely different from the dangerous condition called ketoacidosis. For people with diabetes, keto can dramatically simplify blood sugar management by reducing the need for insulin and eliminating the major cause of blood sugar spikes. Many with type 2 diabetes achieve remission on keto, while those with type 1 often reach near-normal blood sugar levels with far less insulin and greater stability.

A Dangerous Condition Unrelated to Nutritional Ketosis — Ketoacidosis is a life-threatening emergency that occurs almost exclusively in people with type 1 diabetes when very high blood sugar combines with dangerously high ketone levels (above 10 mmol/L). It happens when there's not enough insulin—the body can't use glucose for fuel, so it breaks down fat desperately, producing toxic amounts of ketones that make the blood acidic. This is completely different from safe nutritional ketosis (0.5-3.0 mmol/L) from a keto diet. Important: Even on a keto diet, people with type 1 diabetes must take enough insulin to keep blood sugar in normal range. Note that SGLT2 inhibitor medications can increase ketoacidosis risk. If you have type 1 diabetes, monitor both blood sugar and ketones, especially when sick.

Ketones are molecules produced by the liver when it breaks down fat for energy. There are three types: beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), acetoacetate, and acetone. Your body produces ketones naturally during fasting, low-carb eating, or extended exercise—they're an alternative fuel source that your brain and muscles can use efficiently. Ketone levels can be measured in blood (most accurate), urine, or breath to determine if you're in ketosis.

The Metabolic State of Fat-Burning — Ketosis is a natural metabolic state where your body burns fat as its primary fuel instead of glucose. When you restrict carbohydrates enough (typically below 20-50g per day) or fast for extended periods, your liver converts fat into molecules called ketones, which your brain and body can use for energy. This is a normal, healthy process that humans have relied on throughout evolution during times of limited food. Nutritional ketosis produces ketone levels of roughly 0.5-3.0 mmol/L—high enough to provide the metabolic benefits but nowhere near the dangerous levels (over 10 mmol/L) seen in diabetic ketoacidosis. Being in ketosis often brings mental clarity, stable energy, reduced hunger, and easier blood sugar management.

Low-Carb High-Fat Diet — LCHF (Low-Carb High-Fat) is a dietary approach that emphasizes reducing carbohydrates while increasing healthy fats, with moderate protein intake. It's less strict than keto—typically allowing 50-100g of carbs per day rather than staying under 20-50g—but follows the same basic principle of using fat rather than carbohydrates as the primary fuel source. LCHF gained popularity in Scandinavia and has been particularly successful for people with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and those looking to lose weight without constant hunger. The approach focuses on whole, unprocessed foods: meat, fish, eggs, full-fat dairy, nuts, seeds, and low-carb vegetables, while avoiding sugar, grains, and starchy foods.

Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol — LDL (Low-Density Lipoprotein) is commonly called 'bad cholesterol,' but this label oversimplifies a complex picture. LDL isn't actually cholesterol—it's a transport particle that carries cholesterol, fats, and other substances from your liver to cells throughout your body. What matters more than total LDL is the particle size and number: small, dense LDL particles are associated with heart disease risk, while large, fluffy LDL particles appear relatively harmless. High triglycerides and low HDL are better predictors of small, dense LDL than total LDL itself. Many people on low-carb or keto diets see LDL increase, but often it's the large particles increasing while metabolic health markers (triglycerides, blood sugar, insulin, blood pressure) improve dramatically—suggesting the LDL change may not be harmful in this context.

The Satiety Hormone — Leptin is your body's 'I'm full' hormone—produced by fat cells, it signals to your brain that you have enough stored energy and can stop eating. In theory, more body fat should mean more leptin and less hunger. But with obesity and insulin resistance, the brain often becomes resistant to leptin's signal, a condition called leptin resistance. You produce plenty of leptin, but your brain doesn't hear it, so you stay hungry despite having excess stored energy. High insulin levels, which come from eating too many carbohydrates too often, block leptin signaling in the brain. This helps explain why people with insulin resistance feel constantly hungry and struggle to lose weight—their satiety system is broken. Reducing carbohydrates and insulin levels can help restore leptin sensitivity.

Long-term studies follow participants for years or decades to assess lasting effects and sustainability of interventions. While short-term studies might show initial improvements, long-term data reveals whether benefits persist, whether people can maintain the approach, and whether any unexpected issues emerge over time. In nutrition research, long-term studies are rare and expensive—which is why much dietary advice is based on shorter trials that may not reflect real-world sustainability.

Reducing Carbohydrates for Better Health — Low-carb refers to any dietary approach that significantly reduces carbohydrate intake compared to standard recommendations. While definitions vary, low-carb typically means getting 10-30% of calories from carbohydrates (roughly 50-150g per day), compared to the 45-60% recommended in official dietary guidelines. This broad category includes everything from moderate carb reduction to very low-carb and ketogenic diets. The core principle is simple: by eating fewer carbohydrates, you need less insulin, experience more stable blood sugar, and make it easier for your body to access stored fat for energy. For people with diabetes or insulin resistance, even moderate carb reduction can bring significant improvements in blood sugar control, often allowing reduction or elimination of medications.

Articles discussing prescription medications, their effects, interactions, and how they may need adjustment when making dietary changes—particularly for diabetes, blood pressure, and metabolic conditions.

Brain Function and Emotional Well-being — Mental health encompasses your emotional, psychological, and cognitive well-being—and it's more connected to metabolic health than most people realize. Your brain runs on fuel, and what you eat profoundly affects how it functions. High and fluctuating blood sugar can cause mood swings, brain fog, anxiety, and fatigue. Chronic inflammation and insulin resistance are increasingly linked to depression and cognitive decline. Many people report dramatic improvements in mental clarity, mood stability, and reduced anxiety when switching to a low-carb or keto diet—likely due to stable blood sugar, reduced inflammation, increased production of BDNF (brain growth factor), and the brain's efficient use of ketones for fuel. While diet isn't a cure-all for mental health conditions, metabolic health and brain health are deeply intertwined.

Metabolic flexibility is your body's ability to efficiently switch between burning carbohydrates and burning fat as fuel sources, depending on what's available. A metabolically flexible person can easily tap into fat stores when carbs are limited, while someone with insulin resistance stays locked in sugar-burning mode and struggles when glucose isn't constantly available. This inflexibility leads to constant hunger, energy crashes, and difficulty losing weight. Reducing carbohydrates and practicing intermittent fasting are proven ways to restore metabolic flexibility.

The Pre-Diabetes Cluster of Risk Factors — Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that often occur together: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol. Having three or more of these significantly increases your risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. It's essentially pre-pre-diabetes or early-stage insulin resistance—your body is struggling to manage blood sugar and insulin, but not quite badly enough yet to be diagnosed as diabetic. The root cause is typically chronic insulin resistance from years of high-carbohydrate intake. The good news? Metabolic syndrome is highly reversible through dietary changes, particularly low-carb approaches that directly address insulin resistance. An estimated 25-35% of adults in Western countries have metabolic syndrome, with some degree of insulin resistance affecting even more—making this one of our biggest public health challenges.

GLP-1 Medication for Weight Loss and Diabetes — Ozempic (semaglutide) is a medication that mimics GLP-1, a natural gut hormone that reduces appetite and helps control blood sugar. Originally developed for type 2 diabetes, it became popular for its dramatic weight loss effects—averaging 15% of body weight. However, it requires lifelong use to maintain results, commonly causes nausea and digestive issues, and comes with concerns about muscle loss. Many find that dietary changes addressing insulin resistance offer similar benefits without medication, side effects, or high costs. For others, Ozempic can be helpful, especially combined with lifestyle changes.

Prediabetes means your blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet high enough for a diabetes diagnosis—typically HbA1c between 5.7-6.4% (39-47 mmol/mol) or fasting glucose 5.6-6.9 mmol/L (100-125 mg/dL). It's a warning sign that insulin resistance is already causing problems, often years before official diabetes diagnosis. The good news? Studies show that 90-95% of people with prediabetes can return to normal blood sugar levels by reducing carbohydrates—but only about 5% achieve this with standard 'eat less, move more' advice.

Understanding Ultra-Processed Products — Processed foods are products that have been significantly altered from their natural state through industrial methods—think packaged snacks, sugary drinks, frozen meals, and most items with long ingredient lists full of additives you don't recognize. These foods are typically high in refined carbohydrates, seed oils, sugar, and salt while being stripped of fiber and nutrients. They're engineered to be hyper-palatable, making you want to eat more, and they disrupt your body's natural hunger signals. Ultra-processed foods are strongly linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and inflammation. The more your diet consists of real, whole foods that look like they came from a farm rather than a factory, the better your metabolic health will be.

Randomized Controlled Trial — RCT (Randomized Controlled Trial) is considered the gold standard of scientific research. In an RCT, participants are randomly assigned to either receive an intervention (like a specific diet or medication) or a control condition, allowing researchers to establish cause-and-effect relationships more reliably than observational studies. Random assignment helps eliminate bias and ensures the groups are comparable. However, RCTs aren't perfect—they can be expensive, short-term, and difficult to conduct for dietary interventions where people need to change their eating habits for months or years. When evaluating nutrition research, RCTs provide stronger evidence than observational studies, but even RCTs can have limitations in design, funding sources, and how results are interpreted.

Real food means eating foods that are minimally processed and close to their natural state—meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, nuts, and whole dairy rather than products made in factories with ingredient lists you can't pronounce. The distinction matters because processing often removes nutrients, adds sugars and seed oils, and creates foods engineered to be hyper-palatable and easy to overeat. Real food tends to be naturally lower in carbohydrates and higher in nutrients, making it easier to maintain stable blood sugar and feel satisfied without overeating.

Challenging Decades of Nutritional Dogma — Saturated fat has been demonized since the 1970s, blamed for raising cholesterol and causing heart disease. However, this view is increasingly challenged by modern research. Multiple studies—including some that were suppressed for decades—show that replacing saturated fat with processed seed oils may actually increase heart disease risk, not reduce it. Saturated fat from whole food sources like meat, eggs, and dairy appears far less harmful than once believed, and some research suggests it may even be protective in the context of a low-carb diet. The real culprits appear to be the combination of high carbohydrates with processed fats, not natural saturated fats eaten by humans for millennia.

Understanding Research Quality and Limitations — Scientific evidence comes in different levels of quality and reliability. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide stronger evidence than observational studies, systematic reviews of multiple studies are more reliable than single studies, and longer-term research is more valuable than short-term results. However, all research has limitations: studies can be biased by funding sources (especially from food and pharmaceutical industries), cherry-picking favorable results while ignoring others, short study durations, or how findings are interpreted. Understanding these limitations helps you think critically about health claims. The best approach is looking at the overall pattern of evidence rather than relying on any single study, and remaining skeptical when research conclusions align too perfectly with commercial interests.

Small Dense LDL Particles — sdLDL (small dense LDL) refers to small, dense LDL cholesterol particles that are much more strongly associated with heart disease risk than large, fluffy LDL particles. While standard cholesterol tests only measure total LDL amount, the size and number of particles matters more. Small, dense particles can more easily penetrate artery walls and become oxidized, contributing to plaque formation. High triglycerides (above 1.7 mmol/L) and low HDL (below 1.0 mmol/L) are strong indicators you likely have more sdLDL particles. Low-carb and keto diets typically lower triglycerides dramatically and raise HDL, which usually means fewer of these dangerous small particles—even if total LDL increases. This helps explain why improved metabolic markers may matter more than LDL levels alone.

Seed oils (also called vegetable oils) like soybean, corn, sunflower, and canola oil are highly processed oils extracted from seeds using heat and chemical solvents. They're rich in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats that oxidize easily when heated, potentially creating inflammatory compounds. These oils have only existed in our food supply for about 100 years, yet now make up a huge portion of calories in modern diets—especially in processed foods and restaurant meals. Many researchers question whether this dramatic shift away from traditional fats is contributing to chronic inflammation and metabolic disease.

SGLT2 Inhibitors — SGLT2 inhibitors are diabetes medications that work by making your kidneys excrete excess glucose through urine rather than reabsorbing it back into the bloodstream. While effective at lowering blood sugar, they carry a small risk of diabetic ketoacidosis—especially when combined with very low-carb diets. If you're taking SGLT2 inhibitors (like Farxiga, Jardiance, or Invokana) and considering low-carb eating, close medical supervision is essential to monitor ketone levels and adjust medication safely.

TIR (Time in Range) measures the percentage of time your blood sugar stays within a target range, typically 3.9-10.0 mmol/L (70-180 mg/dL) for people with diabetes. It's captured by continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) that track blood sugar every 5 minutes, 24/7. TIR provides a much more complete picture than HbA1c alone, since you can have the same average blood sugar with wildly different patterns—stable versus yo-yoing between highs and lows. The official treatment goal is at least 70% time in range, but only about half of people with diabetes achieve this. Many people following very low-carb or keto diets consistently maintain TIR above 90%, and some even tighten their target range to 3.9-8.0 mmol/L (70-145 mg/dL)—matching non-diabetic levels—and still achieve 75-90% time in range.

Type 2 diabetes remission means achieving non-diabetic blood sugar levels (HbA1c below 6.5% or 48 mmol/mol) without diabetes medications for at least three months. Research shows that 20-46% of people with type 2 can achieve remission through carbohydrate restriction, with some maintaining it for years. This challenges the old view that type 2 is inevitably progressive—the disease often reverses when you remove the dietary trigger. Remission doesn't mean 'cured' since blood sugar can rise again if carb intake increases, but it demonstrates that the underlying metabolic dysfunction can be reversed.

Very Low-Density Lipoprotein — VLDL (Very Low-Density Lipoprotein) is a particle produced by your liver that transports triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood) through your bloodstream. As VLDL delivers its triglyceride cargo to cells, it gradually becomes smaller and denser, transforming first into IDL (Intermediate-Density Lipoprotein) and eventually into LDL. High VLDL levels typically indicate high triglycerides, which often improve dramatically when carbohydrate intake is reduced. VLDL, IDL, and LDL are essentially the same particle at different stages—not different types of cholesterol.

Weight loss is traditionally explained by 'calories in, calories out'—eat less and move more. However, the Carbohydrate-Insulin Model suggests that what you eat matters more than how much, since different foods affect hormones like insulin that control fat storage and hunger. Research shows both approaches can work, but many people find low-carb eating leads to weight loss without constant hunger or calorie counting, challenging the simple 'eat less' narrative.

Practical Food Choices for Metabolic Health — Practical guidance on choosing foods that support stable blood sugar and metabolic health. This includes what to eat on a low-carb or keto lifestyle, foods to limit or avoid, shopping tips, and how to navigate real-world eating situations. The focus is on whole, unprocessed foods—meat, fish, eggs, healthy fats, and low-carb vegetables—while minimizing foods that spike blood sugar and insulin. These aren't rigid rules but practical frameworks to help you make informed choices that work for your individual health goals and lifestyle.