Richard K. Bernstein (born June 17, 1934) is a physician and an advocate for a low-carbohydrate diabetes diet to help achieve normal blood sugars for diabetics. Bernstein has type 1 diabetes. His private medical practice in Mamaroneck, New York is devoted solely to treating diabetes and prediabetes. Biography Bernstein attended The Franklin School, a college prep school on Upper West Side of Manhattan, and graduated from Columbia University with a BA in 1954 and a BS in 1955. He worked as an industrial-management engineer and director of research, development and marketing for Clay Adams, a manufacturer and supplier of medical laboratory equipment. He then became director of corporate planning at National Silver Industries, an importer and manufacturer of housewares. Bernstein was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 12 in 1946. In 1969, he sought to acquire a blood glucose testing kit, which at the time were only sold to doctors. At the time, he was a systems engineer. He bought a blood glucose meter manufactured by Miles Laboratories. Because he was not a doctor the meter was issued to his wife, who was a psychiatrist. He became the first diabetic patient to monitor their own blood sugar. By trial and error, he found that he could keep his blood sugar at normal non-diabetic levels by eating small low-carbohydrate meals covered by small doses of insulin (Bernstein 2011). Bernstein's efforts to publish articles on his experience in medical journals were rejected because he was not a doctor. He applied to and was accepted at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at age 45 and graduated as an endocrinologist. He proceeded to establish a clinical practice using treatment methods based on his own experience. Diabetes treatment Bernstein's diet is extremely low-carbohydrate in that it completely eliminates all simple sugars and starches, and restricts other carbohydrates to 30 grams a day spread out over 3 small meals (6g at breakfast, 12g at lunch and 12g at dinner), with gaps of around 4 hours between meals to enable more accurate postprandial blood glucose tracking. This diet is combined with exercise with an emphasis on resistance-based muscle-building exercise, and supported by medication if needed. For insulin-dependent diabetics, he advocates taking insulin as small doses before each meal, to exactly cover that meal. The goal of the program is to simulate the blood sugars of non-diabetics, which according to Bernstein are close to 83 mg/dL