A diabetic diet is a diet that is used by people with diabetes mellitus or high blood sugar to minimize symptoms and dangerous complications of long term elevations in blood sugar (i.e.: cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, obesity).

Among guideline recommendations including the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and Diabetes UK, there is no consensus that one specific diet is better than others. This is due to a lack of long term high quality studies on this subject matter.

For overweight and obese people with diabetes, the most important aspect of any diet is that it results in loss of body fat. Losing body fat has been proven to improve blood glucose control and lower insulin levels.

The most agreed-upon recommendation is for the diet to be low in sugar and refined carbohydrates, while relatively high in dietary fiber, especially soluble fiber. Likewise, people with diabetes may be encouraged to reduce their intake of carbohydrates that have a high glycemic index (GI), although the ADA and Diabetes UK note that further evidence for this recommendation is needed.

 

Note:   The above text is excerpted from the Wikipedia article Diet in diabetes, which has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License.