Stumbled across this thread after a call with @joannerinker who is with @AADEdiabetes. She helped me understand why our presentation was not accepted😕but was so encouraging that my little team is going to take it to #AADE20 as a poster. Read the thread, meet me back here. 1/11
She and I agreed that the world of diabetes educators & the world of clinicians who use therapeutic carbohydrate restriction to treat diabetes are waaaay too far apart. We could learn a lot from each other. 2/11
Docs who use low-carb need to learn how NOT to call their patients with diabetes "diabetics" - as if the disease is who they are. 3/11
Docs who use low-carb could learn how NOT to say things like, "A low-carb diet always works if it is done right," because 1) what does that even mean? & 2) it pushes the responsibility for the diet "working" solely onto the patient & leaves the doc off the hook completely. 4/11
Docs who use low-carb could learn that some folks do OK with fruit in their low-carb diet & some do better when they replace fruit with cookies😉(speaking from experience with a person who had T2D).
And, yes, those people can still do a low-carb diet & reverse diabetes. 5/11
And, yes, those people can still do a low-carb diet & reverse diabetes. 5/11
Diabetes educators could learn not to call therapeutic carbohydrate restriction (even at "keto" levels) an "extreme diet." Is a vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or peanut-free diet "extreme"? Because those diets all focus on eliminating whole swaths of foods. 6/11
Certified diabetes educators could learn how NOT to say things like "Your body wants to use carbohydrate more than anything else" because 1) what does that even mean? & 2) humans are designed to burn fat as fuel very well (& do so a great deal of the time) 7/11
Diabetes educators could learn what *really* happens on carb-restricted diets (no, those whole grains & legumes don't get replaced by bacon; they usually get replaced mostly by high-fiber veggies) & quit stoking fears about something they don't know how about IRL. 8/11
[I've encountered all of the above examples in person from docs who use low-carb. The CDE examples come from the current issue of Diabetic Living.] 9/11
If we could get our acts together & learn from each other, we could all learn to fit diets (and the healthcare system) to patients, rather than the other way around. 10/11
And then maybe the resources that were unavailable to help this man would be there - they should have been.
I am committed to trying to create a world where this simply Does. Not. Happen. Ever. 11/end
I am committed to trying to create a world where this simply Does. Not. Happen. Ever. 11/end
