What I learned at Preventing Illness 2016

LivingLoud said:

their concerns are about people not getting enough fiber and people consuming the wrong fats, both of which have serious consequences. They need to find a way to educate this message to the least engaged, least knowledgeable and, frankly, least bright members of society as anything they produce must work for everybody. As a community if we want to work with the medical and public health professionals we need to understand their concerns and help address these challenges. Please remember the general level of ignorance and massive tide of misinformation around food. We live in a world where people still think that eggs are bad, nuts are bad, chocolate is good for you and chips count as one of five a day.

Click to expand...

But their concerns aren't about the current advice being completely inappropriate? Carbs with every meal.. fruit as part of the 5-a-day idiocy when it is quite well known that fructose is a probable cause of NAFLD?
What are these people doing apart from bleating to politicians that there is a crisis coming and that we all need to be on statins.
UK health is completely not fit for purpose where Type 2 is concerned but most are dragging their feet.. I despair. Thankfully there are a few Dr David Unwins and Rangan Chattergee's who are prepared to stand up and speak out.

The trouble is, forcing HCPs to accept LCHF means tilting at the combined windmills of Cholesterol, Saturated Fat, Eatwell, Fibre and a host of other Pillars of the NHS.

- and we are all different. I, like @serenity648 , do best on a fair amount of fibre. I also need a lot of water. Yet I do excellently on saturated fat, and (if you accept the Cholesterol Myth) my cholesterol ratios are excellent.

Other people's cholesterol rises (horrified gasp!!!) on LCHF. And many docs don't understand the ratios.
Some people are fine without fibre.

The only way to deal with the fact that human beings vary, and need variable advice, and variable treatment, is to treat them like unique human beings, on a case by case basis - and that is something that the NHS has historically failed to do for chronic conditions. Far easier to churn out a nice simple treatment dogma of escalating drugs and health checks, with tick box targets and a belief in progressive deterioration and decline.

Plus individualised treatment is expensive.

Much more expensive than having a few people sit on a committee and produce a poster and some literature on the eatwell plate, then circulate it with a bit of a fanfare.

I offered to help my old hospital (before being transferred to tertiary care as the manager admitted they did not have professionals with enough knowledge to help me) as they were complaining about the low uptake from diabetics to attend courses and not knowing the reasons why.

I totally agree that new diagnosed T1's should get to meet others.

I saw a newly diagnosed T1 chap last Monday being talked to about T1 by a professional of some sort in a crowded waiting room! The conversation was dire. And should never have been taking place in a crowded waiting area. I could clearly overhear the conversation.

Why can hospitals not isentify volunteer buddies to talk to new diagnosed patients?

All they would have to do is to get a morning of newly diagnosed patients, and then have them have a cuppa with a "good" buddy...someone who can empathise genuinely.

Really gets my goat that the NHS cannot think of anything to genuinely help people get and stay on the right track...

donnellysdogs said:

I offered to help my old hospital (before being transferred to tertiary care as the manager admitted they did not have professionals with enough knowledge to help me) as they were complaining about the low uptake from diabetics to attend courses and not knowing the reasons why.

I totally agree that new diagnosed T1's should get to meet others.

I saw a newly diagnosed T1 chap last Monday being talked to about T1 by a professional of some sort in a crowded waiting room! The conversation was dire. And should never have been taking place in a crowded waiting area. I could clearly overhear the conversation.

Why can hospitals not isentify volunteer buddies to talk to new diagnosed patients?

All they would have to do is to get a morning of newly diagnosed patients, and then have them have a cuppa with a "good" buddy...someone who can empathise genuinely.

Really gets my goat that the NHS cannot think of anything to genuinely help people get and stay on the right track...

Click to expand...

Thumbs up dd, a cracking post

Robinredbreast said:

Thumbs up dd, a cracking post

Click to expand...

Even to this day I remember feeling so isolated with T1, being different. Nobody wants to be different. We all want to fit in and enjoy the world in our own ways. To this day I have only met two T1's in 30 + years to talk to.

Talking to a non diabetic consultant, nurses etc has never enthused me at all. Talking to others, even on the forum has saved me at times. The care, the advice etc... it could be a whole different world for diabetics if the NHS took up a "buddy" intro system.... but no, they shun it.

Such a shame.

LivingLoud said:

their concerns are about people not getting enough fiber and people consuming the wrong fats, both of which have serious consequences. They need to find a way to educate this message to the least engaged, least knowledgeable and, frankly, least bright members of society as anything they produce must work for everybody. As a community if we want to work with the medical and public health professionals we need to understand their concerns and help address these challenges. Please remember the general level of ignorance and massive tide of misinformation around food. We live in a world where people still think that eggs are bad, nuts are bad, chocolate is good for you and chips count as one of five a day.

Click to expand...

No one is going to suffer serious harm from lack of fibre or eating the 'wrong fats'. This is just nonsense whilst Rome burns. I think rather than us understanding the concerns of the medical and public health 'professionals' surely they need to understand the concerns of those with hidden T2 diabetes thru obesity and suffering real harm not imaginary harm.

Everybody puts lack of fibre in to digestive problems... it isn't!! Some of us... a quite a lot of us have very serious problems if we eat high fibre!!

Agree with Daibell, professionals do need to understand concerns.
The professionals really need foremost (to me) what "good" looks like and learn from persons that are fit and healthy and question and find out more from real people.... they can't continue to keep giving the population bad advice based on flawed data and not learning that our human race is evolving badly...
Real harm is being caused by the NHS / NICE /CCGs not learning and accepting that the human race is now the unhealthiest it has ever been. They need to change NOW...

Thank you for giving us all the feedback, much appreciated, I was tempted to attend, just not at £300.

LivingLoud said:

But…..firstly, any change in the official recommended diet by the NHS takes time to implement. It needs to be thoroughly supported by research, have wide considering of the options, consult with numerous organisations and individuals. It also needs to be supported by a training, implementation and communication program. All of which takes time, public policy moves painfully slowly.

Click to expand...

That almost sounds like it's not going to happen, but I accept that their recommendations are designed for the masses, trouble is type II is a rather larger portion of the masses these days.

LivingLoud said:

Secondly, there is great concern about how you educate on LCHF. A good long-term LCHF diet is actually very complex to get right and very easy to get wrong, and if you get it wrong the consequences can be quite serious. A LCHF long-term diet means very little of the wrong carbs, sufficient of the right carbs to give you enough fibre, good fat but not so you exceed your calorie requirements and very little of the bad fats + you need protein + minerals etc. They need to figure out how you effectively communicate this to an audience that may not be that engaged or educated.

Click to expand...

I have a theory, every time you mention HF with LC most people switch off and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's why low carb isn't going to be on anybody's recommendations any time soon. I suppose I'm lucky, low carb for me is a doddle, I just avoid the obvious (I realise what's obvious to me may not be to everyone, having dieted the low fat low cal way for so long, low carb was easy). Even on 40 gms of carb a day I have sufficient fibre, but then I take supplements to ensure good gut health. Even taking cocodomol isn't a problem except for fluid retention (soluble cocodomol has loads of salt).

LivingLoud said:

Thirdly....there is very little resources due to government cuts

Click to expand...

Confirms what I thought, it's not going to happen.

I have recently re-established contact with an old chum who mentioned he was type II, snap I said. But then he boasted how it's made no difference to his life, he still eats and drinks what he likes. Strange feeling came over me, I just couldn't be bothered to point out the error of his ways. He even takes doctor's advice about not monitoring. He's not the first person, my father and cousin are also like that, there's absolutely no telling them. So I've given up. I need to concentrate on me and why 1200 calories doesn't allow me to lose weight.

Thanks again, it was very useful, I do understand the opinion of the powers that be, so I (we) have to make sure that I (we) look after my (our) selves to the best of our ability and whatever combination of carbs and fats necessary to achieve the goal of well controlled BG.

When it comes down to it for me, the NHS for chronic conditions operates a production line. This procrustean approach makes it cost effective to an extent from an accountancy perspective and might kind of satisfy the 'average' person, if they fit the profile that the NHS adopts of wanting everyone have as 'normal' a life as possible, at least normal defined by them. This however is not necessarily the best optimum outcome for many individuals nor even ultimately from a whole life financial perspective.

Like any production line, when it is established it is difficult to dismantle and reform and acts as a constraint and a mindset that affects and overwhelms many able and dedicated HMOs that might do better with a freer rein.

Jay-Marc said:

When it comes down to it for me, the NHS for chronic conditions operates a production line. This procrustean approach makes it cost effective to an extent from an accountancy perspective and might kind of satisfy the 'average' person, if they fit the profile that the NHS adopts of wanting everyone have as 'normal' a life as possible, at least normal defined by them. This however is not necessarily the best optimum outcome for many individuals nor even ultimately from a whole life financial perspective.

Like any production line, when it is established it is difficult to dismantle and reform and acts as a constraint and a mindset that affects and overwhelms many able and dedicated HMOs that might do better with a freer rein.

Click to expand...

Thats a bit laughable really... its because its governement based finances and staff that have good money and pensions... and don't need to think ohtside the box once they've been trained-they can just poodle along doing the same thought processes for 20 years

If it was a true production line thinking and having to generate profits instead of losses like the guys that set up Amazon from a garage.... they would be acting and thinking differently.

The NHS is archaic. Look at the improvements in phones in 10 years or the prices of tv's and technology... yet the medical phaema businesses are still
Charging extortionate rates for pumps and cgms etc... because they can.

The trouble with "average" is that none of us are... we are all individuals and GPs do not even report side effects of medicines etc properly to the MHRA for the non average person that may get a side effect.. so even the medication information is skewed badly....

donnellysdogs said:

The trouble with "average" is that none of us are... we are all individuals and GPs do not even report side effects of medicines etc properly to the MHRA for the non average person that may get a side effect.. so even the medication information is skewed badly....

Click to expand...

Have you seen this?

https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/the-yellow-card-scheme/

Having said that, I did a search on statins, atorvastatin and simvastatin and there's nothing there. I'm sure I reported atorvastatin years ago. I need to check further.

Yes, I've had to use it many times.... Inreported faulty sets from pump.. they were withdrawn. Tge sets had been reported to hospital and the pump manufacturer. Hospital did nothing.
Same with GPs. Report to them -horrible side effects from some drugs due to the coating and binding agent used... Doctors don't even update my records until I ask them to. None of them have ever MHRA'd as they shoul. Always been me.

I do it to ensure I help otgers and hope that they will do the same so that more accurate side effects are listed.