Daily HealthBeat Tip - September 12, 2007

Trouble with fats

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

People with diabetes have to be careful what they eat, of course, to help control blood sugar levels. And that may be especially true about low-carb eating patterns.

Janet Snell-Bergeon of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes in Denver bases that on her look at what people with type 1 diabetes said they ate. Her study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, and she reported the results at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association.

Snell-Bergeon says these folks tended to favor a low-carb eating pattern, which could mean trouble:

``The low carbohydrates themselves aren’t harmful, but the balance of those calories were made up by eating more harmful substances such as saturated fat.’’ (9 seconds)

High saturated fat can raise the risk of heart disease – and heart trouble is a special risk for people with diabetes

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: September, 12 2007