Research
Macro partitioning
Low-carbohydrate diets offer superior short-term glycaemic control (HbA1c reduction) compared to high-carbohydrate diets, but this benefit is not maintained at 12 months.
If you have type 2 diabetes, a low-carbohydrate diet can help lower your HbA1c significantly in the first 6 months. However, this advantage tends to disappear after a year, likely because it is hard to stick to. Focus on a sustainable dietary pattern that you can maintain long-term.
GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
It concluded that lower carbohydrate diets were effective for glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes compared with higher carbohydrate diets, with a greater reduction in HbA1c (weighted mean difference –4.7 mmol/mol [–0.47%]) in the short term (3–6 months), but this benefit was not maintained at 12 months.
Why this rating
Based on systematic reviews and RCTs, but limited by adherence and definition variability.
Source
Embracing complexity: making sense of diet, nutrition, obesity and type 2 diabetes
Nita G. Forouhi · Diabetologia · 2023
DOI 10.1007/s00125-023-05873-z
narrative_reviewCited 59×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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