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How Does This Kind Of Behaviour Affect The Low Carb Movement?

tim2000s

Expert
Retired Moderator
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Location
London
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Other
The below picture is from twitter today. The image on which the commentary is based was posted by the well know father of a child with T1D.

The resultant mocking retweet that was undertaken, copying in some prominent low carb advocates is a good demonstration of the issues.

One of the things I have never understood, and it’s applicable to all of the names people, is why it’s okay to be an advocate, but not to be a responsible advocate.

If you are standing up for low carb, you should also be admonishing those who are deliberately (or otherwise) taking a bullying route. @dcuk_mod @admin - what do others think?

 
I have to agree with you. If you choose to advocate then do it responsibly. If you have to bully a point across then you and I will fall out. And finally, know your audience and the differences that could mean that your aggressive advocacy possibly causes harm.

As for hashtagging names of people or groups into such a tweet I understand that those who are tagged have two choices (I beleive Harcombe had to deal with a similar situation just recently) they can ignore it or they can tweet back disassociating themselves from it and this risks getting all the argy bargy from other twits.
BTW I can't abide Twitter.
 
proof that people may have all the hashtag connections, and yet are too stupid to join the dots and understand what they are talking about. It was ever thus : (

1) lack of basic understanding of the needs of a T1
2) basic inability to grasp the concept of the causes of type 2 diabetes
3) n grasp of the differences in diabetic types, both in treatment and needs.

need I go on?
 
Totally agree that a bullying tone just shows this tweeter's need to feel superior but I think getting involved in Twitter spats leads to madness just by the 40 character nature of that beast (forces dramatic black and white positioning)
There is an argument for low carb for type 1s but it looks like this person was showing their ignorance of the different diseases.
This is a tweet from an ignorant individual who misunderstands type 1 I think but The Daily Express did soemthing similar in its generally good article on the rise of type 2 in kids article in which they referenced a Cbeebies show for toddlers where the newly diagnosed type 1 child (nothing to do with junk food and childhood obesity) is shown how to inject herself 'using an epi pen' !
It did however reference 'experts' (Dr Aseem Malotra) who thnk that the government advice to eat low fat and starch has a causal link to the current 'epidemic'.
 
Tweets like this make ordinary low carbers look like one of a herd of cattle so set on being part of the herd that they stampede over the edge of a cliff. It smacks of the tribalism and dogma that we see in football crowds or demonstrations whereby the the fact that the majority of fans/demonstrators are there for a given, peaceful purpose are eclipsed in the media because some idiots prefer to attend only to have a good ruck.
 
Hey, we footie fans are nowhere near as nasty as the Twitter bullies lol! It's a good analogy though.

I think the problem is ego, the bully thinks he/she is worth more than other people. Nope, if you need to bully to get your point across you are at the bottom of the heap. Part of the problem is that some decent people don't use Twitter, so their voices aren't heard.

@tim2000s I'm not sure that prominent low carbers would help matters by admonishing those who bully though? These types just like to argue and throw mud at anyone who gets in their way. I've tried standing up to them in certain instances to no avail because of course they 'know they are right'. Now I usually do what my Mum used to advise....'pity them, but ignore them'. Confronting them is like feeding a troll, bullies crave attention for themselves, not their cause (poor souls ) , best not to give them any.
 
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tim2000s said:
One of the things I have never understood, and it’s applicable to all of the names people, is why it’s okay to be an advocate, but not to be a responsible advocate.
Click to expand...
Methinks you do protest too much.. any old tom, **** or harry can copy in someone to their tweet do you really expect busy people with jobs and lives to respond to every single thing that someone tags them in? Why?
Do you respond to every junk email that lands in your spam box?
People are a**holes to other people - I'm afraid that the anonymity of Twitter just encourages it...
 
tim2000s said:
If you are standing up for low carb, you should also be admonishing those who are deliberately (or otherwise) taking a bullying route. @dcuk_mod @admin - what do others think?
Click to expand...

How Does This Kind Of Behaviour Affect The Low Carb Movement?
Not at all, I get the feeling that most people in this country don't even see sugar as being a carbohydrate, so probably won't recognise the connection. Personally, as much as I avoid sugar completely, I don't see one packet of jelly beans as being a problem. Eating them regularly will have longer term issues. The content of the message is just daft although I'd also be concerned about the other toxins in the product, not just the sugar.
 
Like any bully, they fall flat on their back.
I'm looking forward to his type1 daughter having to re-educate him, especially if he shows his ignorance in front of her friends.

Type1s know sugar hasn't caused their diabetes.
Especially the fact to stop death in a severe hypo is glucose... and fast.

Is this twitter's point that jelly beans are harmful to his hypoing daughter? Or that type2s don't respect a type1's or insulin dependant type2's need for glucose in an emergency?

Yes. Sometimes I am nieve to sarcasm.
Because sometimes I cannot believe some people are soooo stupid.
 
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Agree. What is the remain grammes made of, E numbers?
 
bulkbiker said:
do you really expect busy people with jobs and lives to respond to every single thing that someone tags them in?
Click to expand...

Noakes did respond, and he not only didn't admonish the guy, he actually made it worse by having a go at people like me who dare to eat more than 50g a day.

I sometimes go low carbish, many times not, but I think what extreme low carbers fail to understand is just how condescending and patronising they sound, as if they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Noakes' response shows that in spades.

Look at his post at 10:57 - "crucial to minimise need for insulin injections - limit carbs to 25 -50g per day maximum".

What complete and utter guff. That's him basically saying that the child wouldn't need to have hypo treatment if only he followed a lc path.

When someone uses words like "crucial", they've lost the argument. It's not "crucial", it's an "option".

His response to Georgina Lloyd is just plain insulting, tells her to go off and read Bernstein, like she is some small uneducated child. That would be the Bernstein who proudly boasts that he hasn't eaten fruit in decades, and advises to scrape tomato sauce off the fish course.

Here's the thread for anyone wanting to see an extremist low carber digging a hole and alienating people:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfTimNoakes/status/1030755651356635138

 

Seems that @tim2000s post has had exactly the inflammatory response that he wanted..
 
Hmmm but isn't Noakes right? Too much insulin (the antidote to carbs) causes hypos? I would agree that the word 'crucial' is unnecessary though.

I do agree that it's up to individuals to settle on the right amount of carbs for themselves ( or their children) . Being so prescriptive doesn't help everyone, but then some folks find it helps to have a figure to work to. Each to his own, we shouldn't be criticising anyone for how they manage their health. We can't ever know all the factors involved.

I remember when my eldest was 3, he was planning on 'helping' at a fete by assisting a 7 year old with a 'spin the arrow' game. The prizes were going to be wrapped sweets. We went to the supermarket and he had great fun spotting which ones were wrapped and therefore OK to use. He excitedly picked up 3 large bags of sweets and said 'can I have these?' I won't ever forget the filthy looks I got from other shoppers and 2 supermarket assistants who thought my son's diet consisted solely of sugar. We really shouldn't be judging anyone, we don't have the full facts.

Personally I find never reading Twitter (except when @tim2000s mentions it grrrr lol) helps my BGs immensely.
 
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I thank anyone who wants to debate low carb eating and any diabetic whose management isn't working well, for them.

I'm no expert but the facts don't lie.
Too much insulin causes hypos and too much carb causes hypers.
For any diabetic.
 
zand said:
Hmmm but isn't Noakes right? Too much insulin (the antidote to carbs) causes hypos?
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ickihun said:
Too much insulin causes hypos and too much carb causes hypers.
Click to expand...
If you are in a Carb cycle, then yes, it's easy to end up in a place where there's an imbalance, however, it's relatively easy to create an imbalance without eating carbs, and by physiological means, e.g., exercising with background insulin on board that keeps you flat normally can result in lows, regardless of whether you took insulin to cover carbs.

But it comes back to the issue of dogma. Noakes is digging the hole further. Whilst he's correct in stating that reducing the amount of carbs reduces the need for insulin, he's also (probably deliberately) missing the point that with the use of sub-optimal insulin, it's not just food/insulin carb cycles that cause hypos, and that, in a nutshell, is why you end up with many people getting annoyed by these types of conversation (and they don't just happen on Twitter - we've seen them here in the forum and also facebook).
 
tim2000s said:
But it comes back to the issue of dogma. Noakes is digging the hole further. Whilst he's correct in stating that reducing the amount of carbs reduces the need for insulin, he's also (probably deliberately) missing the point
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I'm not sure that is true. Noakes has never claimed to be an expert on Type 1 (at least to my knowledge) so he refers people (condescendingly according to @Scott-C ) to someone who he thinks is as expert i.e. Dr Bernstein. Whether you agree with him or not what you cannot deny is that he (Bernstein) has seen significant success in treating Type 1's with his specific "Small Number" methodology.
The Typeonegrit group demonstrate this as well.
Prof Noakes has been spending a lot of time of the Low Carb circuit and seeing the success stories of Type 1's who follow this approach so it is hardly surprising that he will recommend Low Carb to Type 1's. It may, to him at least, seem negligent not too.
Indeed if it wasn't for the cabal of "It's an eating disorder" voices that appear here I would imagine that this forum too would be recommending strongly that Type 1's follow low carb so they too can see the benefits that some members, who seem to be have been frightened off by the strength of disagreement, have experienced.
 
I'm not saying that lower carb doesn't help (the "law" of small numbers makes a lot of sense), nor that Noakes is a T1 specialist, however, if you interject in a conversation about T1, there's an expectation that you'll react in a sensible fashion. He was insinuating that by going low carb, hypos don't happen and therefore treatment for hypos isn't needed, which is patently untrue.

FWIW, my experience with lower carb is that basal requirements didn't change very much, and exercise still caused lows. If you are operating on longer acting insulins (such as Tresiba, Lantus or Levemir) where you have limited capability to vary the dose, hypos are still a risk, whereas those on pumps have much more flexibility. It was interesting to see him use Troy Stapleton as an example of someone who low carbs and does endurance sports successfully. As always with exogenous insulin, your mileage, diabetes and treatment mechanism may vary, which is why sweeping generalisations rarely win fans.
 
tim2000s said:
he was insinuating that by going low carb, hypos don't happen and therefore treatment for hypos isn't needed, which is patently untrue.
Click to expand...
I really don't think that is what Prof Noakes is saying whatsoever but that maybe what you are reading into it.
You have already agreed that excess insulin causes hypos.. thus logically reducing insulin requirements should reduce hypos.
Not that they will never happen or not require treatment.. the idiot that tagged Noakes in may have implied that but Prof Noakes didn't.

Edit to add... plus of course we are talking about Twitter... hardly a platform for subtle nuance and discussion...
 
At the risk of being shot down there does seem to be an unspoken rule here that dietary advice should not be given to those members with T1D and yet the opposite doesn't apply. This is, in my opinion, what can cause divisions not only between those with the different types but between those who have T1D and manage well on a 'normal' diet and those with T1D who do well with a lower carb way of eating.

What struck me first on reading the tweet in the OP was the twits arrogance in assuming that he/she was in the best position to comment on how another parent should raise their child (I may be reading too much into it but that is the way I am) only then did I think that the best people to give advice to the parent of a child with T1D are those in the same position and/or a medical professional. This is purely because parents are ultimately responsible for their children's well being and no parent would 'experiment' on their child willy nilly.

As for Prof. Noakes, he is not saying anything much different to that of Dr. Bernstein but Bernstein is not castigated for advising those with T2D. There lies the rub.
 
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