The carnivore diet, characterized by the consumption of primarily animal products, has gained attention for its potential impact on blood glucose levels and overall health. While some individuals report positive outcomes, such as improved blood sugar control, a comprehensive understanding of the diet's effects, particularly in the context of high blood glucose and diabetes, is crucial. This article explores the complex relationship between the carnivore diet, glucose metabolism, and potential health implications, drawing upon scientific research and expert opinions.
Metabolic Adaptations of Carnivores
Carnivores, including dolphins and domestic cats, possess unique adaptations that enable them to thrive on diets rich in protein and fat, with minimal carbohydrates. These adaptations result in distinct metabolic pathways compared to non-carnivores. Key differences include:
- Hepatic Glucokinase (GCK) Pathway: The hepatic GCK pathway, essential for glucose metabolism, is absent in healthy carnivores. In contrast, GCK deficiency in non-carnivores can lead to diabetes.
- Fasting Hyperglycemia and Insulin Resistance: Healthy dolphins and cats may experience periods of fasting hyperglycemia and insulin resistance, both risk factors for diabetes in non-carnivores.
These metabolic distinctions highlight the evolutionary adaptations of carnivores to utilize protein and fat as primary energy sources, minimizing their reliance on glucose.
The Carnivore Diet: A Closer Look
The carnivore diet is an extremely restrictive diet that’s grown in popularity mostly via social media as a quick way to lose weight over the last few years. The carnivore diet typically consists of all animal foods, and most people favor high fat cuts. Red meat, poultry, organ meats, processed meats like bacon, sausage, hot dogs, fish, and eggs are all on the plan. Some people also eat dairy, particularly cheese. Others include condiments and spices as part of the diet, too.
Potential Benefits
Proponents of the diet tout its ability to aid in weight loss, cure autoimmune diseases, decrease digestive issues, and improve heart health. People with diabetes say it’s been able to help them stabilize their blood sugar. Anna C., a type 2 diabetes patient, found that eliminating carbohydrates and consuming only meat, fats, eggs, and hard cheeses resulted in stable blood sugar levels and normal A1C readings.
Read also: High-Fiber Diet for Better Health
Potential Risks and Concerns
Despite anecdotal reports of benefits, the carnivore diet raises several concerns:
- Nutrient Deficiencies: When you go meat only, you’re missing a lot of nutrients, fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
- High Saturated Fat Intake: One of the main issues is that it’s high in saturated fats due to its high amounts of red meat and dairy. Too much saturated fat can increase levels of bad cholesterol (known as non-HDL cholesterol) in the blood. Both high cholesterol and high blood pressure raise the risk of developing coronary heart disease and having a heart attack or stroke.
- Lack of Fiber: For example, the diet contains virtually no fibre, which is a type of carbohydrate only found in plant-based foods that cannot be completely digested.
- Long-Term Health Consequences: Over time, eating a diet of mostly or only meat can have long-term health consequences.
Most of the experts Healthline spoke to for this story advise against going fully carnivore, particularly if you have diabetes.
The Carnivore Diet and Blood Glucose Control
From a biochemistry standpoint, if you’re eating only meat, you’re largely not taking in glucose, so your blood glucose levels would not be affected. But there is more to diabetes than just your blood sugar level. Measuring blood sugar looks at the short term, immediate effect of food.
Potential Benefits for Diabetics
Going all-meat has helped some people with diabetes lower their glucose. Anna C., found that eliminating carbohydrates and consuming only meat, fats, eggs, and hard cheeses resulted in stable blood sugar levels and normal A1C readings.
Potential Risks for Diabetics
After about 24 hours of fasting or no carbohydrate intake, the liver glycogen stores are not available. Our muscles need insulin for them to get glucose into the cells, so a person with diabetes may have elevated blood glucose readings when omitting carbs.
Read also: Delicious High-Fiber Smoothie Recipes
Additionally, a person with diabetes who’s taking medication such as insulin may experience hypoglycemia, or low blood glucose levels, by eating only meat, Smithson says. To bring their blood glucose levels back up, they’ll need to consume a fast acting carbohydrate - not meat, she explains.
Meat Intake and Glucose Homeostasis: Genetic Factors
Recent studies suggest that meat intake is associated with diabetes-related phenotypes. However, whether the associations of meat intake and glucose and insulin homeostasis are modified by genes related to glucose and insulin is unknown.
Research Findings
Processed meat was associated with higher fasting glucose, and unprocessed red meat was associated with both higher fasting glucose and fasting insulin concentrations after adjustment for potential confounders [not including body mass index (BMI)]. Every additional 50-g serving of processed meat per day, fasting glucose was 0.021 mmol/L (95% CI: 0.011, 0.030 mmol/L) higher. Every additional 100-g serving of unprocessed red meat per day was associated with a 0.037-mmol/L (95% CI: 0.023, 0.051-mmol/L) higher fasting glucose concentration and a 0.049-ln-pmol/L (95% CI: 0.035, 0.063-ln-pmol/L) higher fasting insulin concentration. After additional adjustment for BMI, observed associations were attenuated and no longer statistically significant. The association of processed meat and fasting insulin did not reach statistical significance after correction for multiple comparisons. Observed associations were not modified by genetic loci known to influence fasting glucose or insulin resistance.
Implications
The association of higher fasting glucose and insulin concentrations with meat consumption was not modified by an index of glucose- and insulin-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia are leading risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and the worldwide burden of these risk factors continues to rise.
Alternative Dietary Approaches for Diabetes Management
The DASH diet, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is a more beneficial diet for people with diabetes. The DASH diet not only lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It’s can also decrease insulin resistance in people with diabetes as well. It’s high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and emphasizes leaner protein choices, such as fish and poultry, low fat dairy, and beans. Foods higher in saturated fats and added sugars are limited.
Read also: Explore the pros and cons of a high metabolism diet
For another option, recent research found that a low fat vegan diet could improve type 2 diabetes markers in people who haven’t developed diabetes. This further suggests the importance of plant-based foods for diabetes prevention and management. The Mediterranean diet plan has an increasing body of research to support its effectiveness for diabetes prevention and managing type 2 diabetes.
Glucose Levels and Cancer Across Species
Explaining patterns of cancer susceptibility among multicellular organisms is a major challenge in comparative oncology. There is extensive evidence that diet affects cancer risk in humans. Birds have higher plasma glucose concentration than other vertebrates and less cancer than mammals and reptiles.
Research Findings
Mean plasma glucose concentration varied considerably across the examined vertebrate species. The burmese python (Python bivittatus) had the lowest mean plasma glucose concentration (1.22 mmol/L), whereas the bird blue-bellied roller (Coracias cyanogaster) had the highest mean plasma glucose concentration (21.08 mmol/L).
There was no correlation between diet and mean plasma glucose concentration in all our analyses across vertebrate species. While it initially appears that species with higher plasma glucose concentrations get less cancer and less neoplasia (Supplementary Fig. 1, and in some multivariable analyses: Supplementary Data 2), this appears to be entirely driven by differences between birds, mammals, and ectotherms (Supplementary Data 2).