This one is tricky. Hypoglycemia in a type one is not caused by the same thing as hypo in a type 2. A hypo in a type 2 is often caused when the body overshoots on its insulin production. But a type one does not produce insulin. A type one has to shoot insulin via a syringe. A hypo in a type 1 is when the human does not balance insulin shots with glucose intake and the insulin is too strong and too much glucose is taken out of the blood stream. That is why type ones must carry sugar with them, in case their blood sugar starts to go too low. Even believing in paleo, if I were a type one, I would always carry sugar. In a type one, if the blood glucose goes to low, sugar is the best fastest way to save your life. Protein/fat digest too slowly. In the event of an oncoming hypo, you must ingest glucose asap or you could quickly have convulsions and die. In order to properly argue for a low sugar diet, you MUST understand these basic issues that face a type 1.
Now for other complications. There are many kinds of insulins, fast acting insulins, slow acting insulins, and a variety of intermediate acting insulins. Type ones will often use a variety like a slow acting one for all day plus a faster acting one to shoot up around meal time when glucose load is high. How fast each individual responds to each type of insulin is unique and required experimentation, planning, and experience. How much insulin is needed at meal time depends on how much food is eaten and what type of food is eaten.
For a person who processes/responds to insulin quickly, that person damn well better have a lot of glucose entering the blood stream quickly. Or he/she could die. Or that person can try to find a slower acting insulin and then perhaps coudl eat more protein fat and less glucose. But the two must be balanced, both insulin action and glucose entering the blood stream from food. The diabetic must try to match not only intensity but also duration. It's tricky.
To make matters worse, the body doesn't always respond in the same way to the same dose of insulin. Morning insulin may act different than night insuline. And exercise can strongly inhance the activity of insulin. That is why exercising diabetics can easily risk going hypo. Cuz now the same amount of insulin is going to be stronger than it was before and the diabetic will need to be very very careful of not going hypo. Best keep some sugar around for emergencies. Also, for unknown reason, some diabetics are just 'brittle' as well, which means their bodies react particularly erratically and unpredicably to glucose intake and insulin intake. These people have special difficult balancing their blood sugars.
So. What you are probably trying to do is convince a diabetic that has figured out a succesful balance of specific insulins to specific glucose intake, to try a different type of food, which would probably mean she would have to work with a whole different insulin regimen in order to properly balance it. She could not continue to shoot the same levels of insulin if she cut her glucose intake. If she did, her current insulin intake could kill her. To change her diet to low carb, high fat/protein, she would need to find an insulin regimen that would mean a less strong insulin that would last a longer time in order to match the digestoin rates and glucose load of the new diet. This could throw off her whole system and it could take months or longer to come up with a new system that is safe for her. Doing this would mean more blood testing, higher risk of going either hypo or having too high blood sugars, and lots of experimentation. This is probably why she doesn't want to do it. I'd say over the long haul, the improved health that comes with eating healthy food is worth it. But you have to realize that simply changing diet is not a simple process for a type 1 diabetic.
