Diabetes Professional Care conferences tackles type 2 diabetes reversal and burnout

The third-ever Diabetes Professional Care conference (DPC2017) took place this week and featured discussions on several pressing issues with diabetes care.
The two-day event at Olympia London included conferences and workshops on the childhood obesity strategy, type 2 diabetes and diabetes burnout.
There were extremely positive discussions regarding type 2 diabetes, specifically, reversing the condition.
Professor Mike Trenell, Chief Scientific Officer at Changing Health, insisted the message needs to change: type 2 diabetes is not a progressive, chronic condition, rather one that can be treated and put into remission.
Meanwhile, Dr Alex Miras, a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Endocrinology at Imperial College London, reviewed the latest evidence regarding bariatric surgery and type 2 diabetes.
The government’s much-maligned childhood obesity strategy, released in 2016, was also examined.
Richard Sangster, the Head of Obesity Policy at the Department of Health, admitted the childhood obesity strategy fell short in several areas, while Dr Alison Tedstone, Chief Nutritionist at Public Health England (PHE), acknowledged, “This has been criticised by non-government organisations … but Downing Street really cares about it.”
Debbie Hicks, a Diabetes Nurse Consultant at Enfield Health, spoke out about her experiences of seeing diabetes burnout in her patients. She said: “[Burnout] has been there for years, but no one has done anything about it.”
Hicks, who has type 1 diabetes herself, also candidly revealed how she twice experienced burnout and didn’t receive suitable treatment from healthcare professionals. She suggested a lack of understanding at the time was significant.
Professor Cathy Lloyd, Professor of Health Studies at the Open University, then spoke about why screening for depression is of the utmost importance, particularly within the South Asian community. She revealed study findings where South Asians were shown to be up to six times more likely to develop diabetes, and those with existing diabetes have higher levels of depression compared to white Europeans with the condition.
There was also an insightful workshop from Arjun Panesar and Charlotte Summers from Diabetes.co.uk, entitled ‘Play your carbs right’, where the sugar content in foods was compared to reveal just how sugary some so-called healthy foods actually are.
Catch up on our live reviews of day one and day two of the event.