I often speak of the harmful and ineffective diabetes treatments promoted by the Medical Industry. I am specifically talking about the high carb, grain based ‘carb up shoot up’ diabetes treatments. In this post…
- A Medical Industry study supports what I have been saying!
- Not only ineffective diabetes treatments but other issues as well.
More and more doctors, dietitians, nutritionists and diabetes educators are ‘seeing the light’, still far too few of them to prevent the REAL pain and suffering that occurs to millions of diabetics every day.
The above picture is a reality for too many diabetics. Type 2’s burnout their pancreas and require insulin while Type 1’s develop insulin resistance. This is a failure of our medical industry and they should be ashamed of promoting a ‘carb up shoot up’, diabetes treatment protocol.
Diabetics Receive Ineffective Treatment
Direct quote from the article.
“Millions of people worldwide may be at risk of early death from diabetes and related cardiovascular illnesses because of poor diagnosis and ineffective treatment…”
Can you believe it? A medical industry study comes to the same conclusion. This study is from the “Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington”.
If you spend much time in the “Diabetes Community” this will NOT be a shock to you. I’ve lost many friends and relatives to early deaths. Many more who won’t follow my suggestions experience organ failures, nerve pain and amputations. :(
Carb Up and Shoot Up Diabetes Treatments
First, let me define ‘medical industry‘. When I use this term I am referring to doctors, nutritionists, dietitians and diabetes educators.
Second, let me explain what I mean by “carb up and shoot up” diabetes treatments. The Medical Industry promotes a high carb, grain based diabetes diet. Carbs raise blood sugars, a few carbs will raise blood sugars a little. See the pic below.
A high carb diabetes diet, including grains like the diet promoted by the Medical Industry will spike blood sugars to harmful levels. Starches, grains, cereals and sugars like the picture above will spike blood sugars.
The paper is a lengthy one but I don’t recall seeing diet mentioned, so the study is not criticizing diet directly. However, the study does state the obvious…
Diabetics all over the world, including the US are receiving ineffective diabetes treatments!
Here is a link to the actual study comparing the statistics of the different countries.
Low Carb Paleo
The sad news? I’d bet the bar for “effective treatment” is set far too low. I’m sure they are using the same ‘old standards’ like an A1C below 7 or 6.5. In other words, the ‘true’ numbers of those failing to control blood sugars are likely to be much higher than reported in this study. EVEN using the Medical Industry’s standards, 90% of diabetics fail at successfully managing diabetes.
All diabetics would benefit IMMEDIATELY from a low carb paleo meal plan ( like mine ) … yet the American Diabetes Association and the American Association of Diabetes Educators still promote a grain laden meal plan that benefits three groups… Big Food, Big Pharma and The Medical Industry.
Since I’ve adopted a very low carb paleo lifestyle all of my known diabetes complications have been healed.
I am in the best shape of my adult life and I maintain truly normal blood sugars.
All of this while being completely diabetes drug and insulin free.
Millions Suffer from Ineffective Diabetes Treatments
From the study,
“Millions of people worldwide may be at risk of early death from diabetes and related cardiovascular illnesses because of poor diagnosis and ineffective treatment …”
My point that I want to ‘hammer home’ … even if they received the best care money could buy… millions of people would suffer from ‘carb up shoot up’ diabetes treatments. A high carb meal plan guaranteed to require them to take ever increasing amounts of drugs and insulin.
Who benefits from this? Big Pharma, Big Food, and the Medical Industry including the American Diabetes Association through increased “donations” from those groups.
I’ll close with this. In the United States we spend more money than any other country on medical care. Yet…
“In the United States alone, nearly 90% of adult diabetics — more than 16 million adults aged 35 and older — have blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol that are not treated effectively…”
Question: WHEN is a 10% success rate acceptable?
Answer: When large corporations profit.
Lower Your Blood Sugar Naturally
If your blood sugars are elevated and you cannot achieve truly normal blood sugars with diet alone…
READ MY BOOK! How to Reduce Blood Sugars.
The article doesn’t outline why the failure rate is as high as it is. I think you are jumping to your conclusion a little early. It could be that no diabetic in America is following the ADA diet (can you do it if you eat McDonalds every day?).
I agree with you that eating paleo will definitely drop this number, but let’s only blame the ADA to the extent to which they are at fault.
Also, this is my first comment on your blog. I would like to say thanks for having a blog that caters to the intersection between being diabetic and paleo. I’m a type 1 diabetic who is very interested in taking care of my body, and this website is helping me get there.
Hello and thanks for the comment.
A full reply to your comment is warranted, instead of posting here… I’ll make a separate post.
Last February (2011), I was hospitalized for a mystery ailment and, for the first time, came into contact with a professional dietician. Oh, my! I found that the ones with whom I came into contact (4 or 5 over 5 months of repeated hospitalizations) were firmly entrenched in the ‘conventional wisdom’ of the field. I can’t imagine how sick I would have been if I had eaten the way they advised. By the 6th hospitalization, the dietician did things my way–she even drove to Wal-Mart for Atkins shakes and to Kroger for CarbMASTER yogurt to supplement the few things on the hospital menu that I could eat (e.g. baked chicken, scrambled eggs with cheese).
The diabetes reared its ugly head during the first hospitalization–after 5 days of a 105 fever. Having been hypoglycemic for 32 years, I accepted my HMO doctor’s word that I didn’t need to worry about such high readings after a prolonged fever. But, she said we would have to check the levels in a month or two to see if I’d recovered. Meanwhile, I read an article in LifeExtensions magazine about the optimum levels of glucose and was shocked. Back when I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia, the doctors said 150 was good. Now, they usually say 100 (fasting) is good. The article in LifeExtensions posited that the fasting reading should be under 80.
All this to say that not only are 90% of diabetics not doing well with conventional treatment, but the bar is set too low–our goal should be in the 70’s, not ‘around 100.’ With this new information, I have to wonder if even 10% have successfully treated the diabetes.
I do think, however, that the newer diet plans for diabetics (keeping the carbs under 100/day) will help those who have a history of much higher carb consumption. In my opinion (and I’m not a doctor), that ‘help’ will only work for a while–then the diabetic will need to go lower than 100 carbs a day to continue becoming healthier.
Pingback: Who benefit from this recipe, Diabetics?
Pingback: Size Matters....