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Time for new NHS diet guidelines?

JSG207

JSG207

Member
There are loads of success stories on this site of Type 2 diabetics following low carb diets and getting great results. I've reversed my diabetes by diet alone and stopped injecting insulin 5-times-a-day as a result. So how come the NHS are still issuing dietary guidelines encouraging eating pasta??? with links to other websites where they encourage a balanced diet including eating bread, potatoes, bananas, dates, prunes... foods known to spike glucose levels?

Are any of the doctors and professors on the at Diabetes.co.uk advisory panel in a position to have a word with diabetic Theresa May about the NHS changing their guidelines?
 
JSG207 said:
Are any of the doctors and professors on the at Diabetes.co.uk advisory panel in a position to have a word with diabetic Theresa May about the NHS changing their guidelines?
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Whilst I agree the guidelines are due a review, low carb is typically advantageous for type 2. Theresa May has type 1. This is a different disease. Please remember the 10% of people with non-type 2 diabetes.
 
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I'm not sure how much carb is optimum for someone with normal blood glucose and normal insulin responses. Not sure anyone does, actually. Probably not as much as in the current Eatwell guidelines, but a large chunk of the population seem to tolerate it OK. The human race is nothing if not omnivorous and adaptible - hence our proliferation and survival.

I'm all for people (anyone) adopting Low Carb if they want to, and if it suits them, but I would be strongly against LC being promoted as the only/primary option for diabetics, even type 2s. I think that would be just as unhelpful as having the Eatwell promoted as the only/primary option.

We should get choices - informed choices.
Although of course that requires knowledge and understanding in the staff offering these suggestions, and willingness to change in the patients receiving the information - which is often not available. Plus, the cost of training staff in comparisons between low cal, low carb, fasting, low fat, high anything...
 
Having been trying to eat low carb for a very long time I have found the antipathy towards it crosses the line into mania - I was about 6 months pregnant when I had a doctor screaming at me that he'd get me taken into hospital and 'fed properly' if I did not eat exactly what was on the print out he gave me. His hands were shaking in fury when he gave me the diet sheet. Three weeks later I had pre-eclampsia.
The normal weightloss regimes of low carb low fat don't work for me - I collapsed from a lack of energy, but got sneered at for having no will power, cheating, lying - gorging was always in there somewhere too.
Ideas certainly need to change, but they are so entrenched they are more a system of belief than research or fact based concepts.
 
helensaramay said:
Whilst I agree the guidelines are due a review, low carb is typically advantageous for type 2. Theresa May has type 1. This is a different disease. Please remember the 10% of people with non-type 2 diabetes.
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Not suggesting low carb is an answer for Theresa May or any other Type 1 diabetic, but May should be sympathetic, you'd think, to help other diabetics
 
Resurgam said:
Having been trying to eat low carb for a very long time I have found the antipathy towards it crosses the line into mania - I was about 6 months pregnant when I had a doctor screaming at me that he'd get me taken into hospital and 'fed properly' if I did not eat exactly what was on the print out he gave me. His hands were shaking in fury when he gave me the diet sheet. Three weeks later I had pre-eclampsia.
The normal weightloss regimes of low carb low fat don't work for me - I collapsed from a lack of energy, but got sneered at for having no will power, cheating, lying - gorging was always in there somewhere too.
Ideas certainly need to change, but they are so entrenched they are more a system of belief than research or fact based concepts.
Click to expand...
Ah, pregnant and doing these extreme diets might not be a good idea, though understandable if you were trying to reduce glucose for your unborn child. I created my own diet. Any amount of vegetables grown above the ground, no limits, if I'm hungry, I eat more greens - move over Bugs Bunny. I eat any meat or fish. I don't eat fruit, or any form of fructose, no potatoes, carrots, parsnips, bread, pasta and my energy levels have increased, amazing for an oldster
 
Brunneria said:
We should get choices - informed choices.
Although of course that requires knowledge and understanding in the staff offering these suggestions, and willingness to change in the patients receiving the information - which is often not available. Plus, the cost of training staff in comparisons between low cal, low carb, fasting, low fat, high anything...
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Agreed about training. But anticipate its more to do with litigation. My NHS diabetic nurse knows that low carb makes sense but she can't be seen to be endorsing that issue just in case. So looks like we'll have to continue self helping
 
JSG207 said:
Not suggesting low carb is an answer for Theresa May or any other Type 1 diabetic, but May should be sympathetic, you'd think, to help other diabetics
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Everyone should be sympathetic not just people with diabetes.
By the way, many people with diabetes do not like to be referred to as "diabetics" as this implies they are defined only by their condition (see http://health.usnews.com/health-new...icles/2014/12/10/why-diabetic-is-a-dirty-word). I am ambivalent but try to be aware of those who are sensitive to this so try to use the term "people with diabetes".
 
@JSG207 - The DCUK Advisory panel includes some very powerful characters, in varying roles with in the medical and allied professions.

DCUK is doing a massive amount of work on behalf of all diabetics, and the commitment to establishing and further developing the Low Carb and other educational programmes surely demonstrates their commitment to making health outcomes better for those living with diabetes?

Changes within the NHS (or any other massive organisation) are always frustratingly slow for reasons we all probably understand, to an extent, and others that just seem bewildering, irrespective of the actual desired change.

On a personal level, I am quite heavily involved in one of the country's main diabetes and lifestyle research centres (in the widest sense of both diabetes and lifestyle). There's a huge amount going on there too.

All research studies and trials take time to conduct, write up, publish, have peer reviewed, then usually a much bigger study of the same topic. Those things all take time and involve serial funding applications; not all of which are assured, no matter how credible any of us think x, y or z piece of research is.
 
JSG207 said:
Ah, pregnant and doing these extreme diets might not be a good idea, though understandable if you were trying to reduce glucose for your unborn child. I created my own diet. Any amount of vegetables grown above the ground, no limits, if I'm hungry, I eat more greens - move over Bugs Bunny. I eat any meat or fish. I don't eat fruit, or any form of fructose, no potatoes, carrots, parsnips, bread, pasta and my energy levels have increased, amazing for an oldster
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I was eating the same way I had done for about 10 or so years, and had already gone through one pregnancy very successfully - I felt wonderful, had excellent checkups, not put on much weight, no swollen feet. I was not restricting what I ate, just avoiding the usual suspects - having lots of fresh salads and other veges, all sorts of berries, grapes, melon, peaches - lots of meat, fish, eggs - I was the picture of health and had just returned from my brother's wedding where all the women were saying how well I looked and my aunts wanted their picture taken with me. Both babies were over 9lb - so it was probably a good thing that I was only 3 weeks on the cereals diet.
 
DCUKMod said:
@JSG207 - The DCUK Advisory panel includes some very powerful characters, in varying roles with in the medical and allied professions.
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Many thanks for letting us know what's going on. Sadly the biggest organization in the UK that deals with the majority of diabetesm NHS, is the one in debt and the one that could make a significant dent into the volume of diabetic prescriptions
 
helensaramay said:
Everyone should be sympathetic not just people with diabetes.
By the way, many people with diabetes do not like to be referred to as "diabetics" as this implies they are defined only by their condition (see http://health.usnews.com/health-new...icles/2014/12/10/why-diabetic-is-a-dirty-word). I am ambivalent but try to be aware of those who are sensitive to this so try to use the term "people with diabetes".
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I'm diabetic, and I have no problem with being called diabetic. I don't find it offensive. It is what it is. If people see me only for being diabetic, and not my profession - then that's their problem ... and the UK prime minister? Also diabetic, she talks about being "diabetic" in TV and radio interviews.

I travel extensively, especially through Europe with many different languages and the term "I am diabetic" is understand by most people including waiters and doctors. I am in France currently, and following your post, I just tried out, in French, "I am a person with diabetes" and reply came back, "ah vous sommes diabetique."
 
JSG207 said:
I'm diabetic, and I have no problem with being called diabetic. I don't find it offensive. It is what it is. If people see me only for being diabetic, and not my profession - then that's their problem ... and the UK prime minister? Also diabetic, she talks about being "diabetic" in TV and radio interviews.

I travel extensively, especially through Europe with many different languages and the term "I am diabetic" is understand by most people including waiters and doctors. I am in France currently, and following your post, I just tried out, in French, "I am a person with diabetes" and reply came back, "ah vous sommes diabetique."
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As I mentioned, I am ambivalent about this. I am a woman; I am an engineer; I am a redhead; I am a diabetic. None of these things defined me. However, one of the great things about humankind is we are all different. Some people are sensitive about being called "diabetic" and I respect this.
Interestingly, on the very rare occasion when I need to describe my medical condition, I usually describe myself as "having diabetes". As an extension to this, perhaps I should describe us "people having diabetes". Does this work any better in other languages?
 
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helensaramay said:
Everyone should be sympathetic not just people with diabetes.
By the way, many people with diabetes do not like to be referred to as "diabetics" as this implies they are defined only by their condition (see http://health.usnews.com/health-new...icles/2014/12/10/why-diabetic-is-a-dirty-word). I am ambivalent but try to be aware of those who are sensitive to this so try to use the term "people with diabetes".
Click to expand...

I completely agree. This may be playing with semantics, but it is no longer acceptable in the clinical world to describe patients as 'arthritic' or 'eplileptic' .... but it is to describe them as 'diabetic'.

I am not defined by my condition ..... clinically I don't have one! (Currently!)... although the NHS and Insurance Companies would disagree!
 
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