I have now had a reply from Diabetes UK which shows how slanted editing produced a rubbish programme that totally misrepresented the advice given by Doubles Twenefour of Diabetes UK. I quote in full -
First of all we are happy to hear that a low carb diet has had such a significant impact on your life. It is apparent from your email that it has not only improved your diabetes management but your quality of life overall so we can appreciate you were disappointed by Diabetes UK's input into "Truth or Scare" .
Unfortunately the short clip that was included in the show was taken out of a 45 minute interview that Douglas Twenefour did. In the full interview he covered the differences between a low carb diet and aketo diet and explained the fact that we have evidence for the effectiveness of a low carb diet in Type 2 diabetes in terms of weight loss, blood glucose management and reducing medications. He explained that we do not have as much evidence for keto but we are aware that some people with diabetes do follow it and have good results. He recommended that people wanting to do a low carb or keto diet involve their diabetes team to make sure they are doing so safely and can get support with any medication changes and more frequent blood testing. This is when he mentioned the fact that for some people, depending on how their diabetes is treated, hypos are a risk. Unfortunately, this was the part used in the programme and was taken out of a wider context, something that is not in our control .
It may be helpful for you to look at our position statement on low -carb diets for further information:
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/resources-s3/2017-09/low-carb-diets-position-statement-May-2017.pdf
We do hope this has been helpful but please do get in touch with us again if you need to. You can also call the Helpline on the number below if you would like to talk things through.
I replied - "I suggest Diabetes UK make a strong representation to the BBC for what was clearly a very biased programme that portrayed Douglas as seriously ignorant even of T1 & T2. You deserve a full airtime apology & a new programme."