What kind of places do you find the b... - Diabetes Research...
What kind of places do you find the best source of information for diabetes?
Activity2004Administrator27 VotersPlease select all that apply:
From YOU, Activity, with your thoughtful, instructive and often humorous posts!
Thanks! Will be doing a posting in the next few days.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
Thank you Activity for all you do for us and informative postings, You are the best. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.
Thank you for saying that! I hope you have a great weekend, too. What's the plan?
as with others, actually the internet - trusted sites like NHS Choices. My diabetes nurse has to be pinned to a wall to get any useful information/feedback out of her. It depends which one I see, and they vary wildly in their responses. Doc is ok but overstretched, this is something GPs shouldn't have to get deeply involved in.
The Internet is full of information and not dedicated to job saving as is the NHS
The NHS advice as offered on their gold standard DESMOND educational course is garbage and taught by people who don't even understand the dietary process. The NICE guidelines haven't changed for 30 years but the disease has spiralled out of control. It is a scandal perpetuated by the medical profession and Big Pharma. Cholesterol is not the problem, high carb and sugar intake are the killers. Eating fat does not make you fat. It's all a big con.
I'm sorry, but that's unfair. The people that teach the NHS DESMOND and DAFNE courses are experienced Diabetes Specialist Nurses and Diabetes Specialist Dietitians with years of experience. We are lucky in this country to have access to such fantastic services. NICE and NHS guidelines are changing all the time to reflect new knowledge and understanding of this complex disease. The fact that the disease is growing to pandemic proportions is down to other factors, like lifestyle and modern living, not because of the guidelines . You can't measure everyone living with diabetes by your circumstances. Type 2 Diabetes is a complex condition with many factors involved in its diagnosis, it can be age related, lifestyle related, genetic, pregnancy related etc. Type 1 Diabetes is caused by an auto-immune response. The unlucky recipient does nothing to cause it, cannot prevent it and needs to take multiple daily insulin injections or they will die. I'm not having a go at you, just trying to highlight the fact that there are many reasons for people having diabetes and many ways to control and manage it.
That's right.
Anyone employed by the NHS can be trained to be a DESMOND tutor. They are not all dietary specialists and merely have to be prepared to study the NICE guidelines on diabetes control which is where the problem lies. The NICE guidelines have been static for decades now, initially established in co-operation with the Pharmaceutical industry based on very limited and selective research which was used to establish a "Safe" level for cholesterol. This arbitrary figure has been adhered to in the face of overwhelming evidence that the guidelines are NOT WORKING. One of the tutors on my DESMOND course was distinctly uncomfortable with a question on the role of fats in the digestion system. He just blustered on about fat being bad and building up in vital areas and should be avoided and low fat was the best way to go. Well I have been eating low fat for 20 years and it didn't stop me putting on weight and it didn't stop me becoming diabetic. Belatedly I have discovered that the food processors regularly substitute sugar for fat to put the taste back into fat reduced foods. My GPs reaction to detecting my type2 diabetes was to offer Metformin and DESMOND, and tick her box. I refused the pharmaceutical offer because there is no evidence that Metformin will cure my diabetes, just control it enough to need it forever. I vowed to do it myself through diet. Lifestyle changes, increased exercise were not an option for me as I have very severe COPD and am on oxygen 24/7 and exercise intolerant. Based on extensive research over a few years by my wife, I rather reluctantly agreed to try the Paleo or caveman diet which is a high fat very low carb diet totally at odds with the NICE/DESMOND teachings. The results have been stunning. At my recent diabetic review my blood sugar had dropped from 7.5 to 5.5 and I'm no longer diabetic and have lost 2 stones in the process. I accept this is not a universal cure-all and others may experience different results, but isn't it time that NICE acknowledged that carbs are most easily turned to sugar, and sugar is the real killer.
For anyone prepared to question the uneasy status quo, can I recommend the following
Pure, White & Deadly by John Yudkin
The Great Cholesterol Con by Malcolm Kendrick
The Calorie Myth by Jonathan Bailor
Only last week the National Obesity Forum & Public Health Collaboration came out firmly against the NICE guidelines. See
