I ended 2013 on a down note as a result
of conversations with a doctor and his request. I know why he would
not blog about them, but he asked me as a favor to tackle a couple of
topics. He knew I would not pull back in what I said and I have
received his thanks for the way I handled them.
Now that we are in the new year, I will
be more positive. However, when something needs to be written about,
I will not pull back from writing about it. There are many topics
that need writing about for education and some for action. I will be
reviewing some of the topics from previous years that need further
discussion. I have many topics that are being suggested by our
support group and even a few from other diabetes support groups. I
even have a couple from readers that I have not covered before.
I will be working on a few more blogs
about self-monitoring of blood glucose, which our doctors refuse to
educate people with diabetes. Another topic of request is about the
attitude of many certified diabetes educators and their cloaked
refusal to work with type 2 diabetes patients. Granted our support
group will not meet with any of them, but this resulted because of
their less than positive attitude.
There are many new studies coming in
this year, but many are still done for the hype and are poorly
designed. Why money is wasted on some of these studies remains a
mystery and others are to promote an agenda that people are pushing.
It is with some worry about what the American Diabetes Association
will post for their guidelines for 2014. Are they going to ignore
some excellent studies, or will they develop some great guidelines
following their nutrition guidelines.
We will see more about what the
pharmacists are accomplishing to help people with diabetes and this
is a positive for people with type 2 diabetes. Unless the American
Association of Clinical Endocrinologists does something unusual this
year, don't expect news from them. The same applies to the American
Association of Diabetes Educators.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
(AND) will more than likely continue to make headlines in an
unfavorable light. Their drive to make themselves the only source of
nutrition information at the Federal and state level is being opposed
by more organizations and rightfully so. We need the option of being
able to select where we obtain our nutrition information considering
AND is in the pocket of Big Food.
We can expect a few more oral diabetes
medications to be approved by the FDA and possibly a new or more
concentrated insulin. As much as I would like to see a few of the
new applications for nanotechnology come on the market, too much
testing needs to be accomplished first to satisfy FDA. Another area
of concern is the host of meaningless apps coming on the market.
Many will still be a single use only and not capable of communicating
with other apps. Therefore, many will still be hyped, but still not
worth the money or of assistance for diabetes and especially not of
value for the geriatric crowd.
What else will be news worthy remains
to be seen, but it should be an interesting year.
Amy Tenderich writing for DiabetesMine
has her observations of much of what happened in 2013. There were
some great happenings, but I will urge you to read her blog.
Nancy Finn has her predictions for 2014
here. Hot Trends for 2014 is the beginning of her blog title.
Granted, “What Health Care Consumers and Providers Need to Know,”
is important for all of us, but does not include diabetes. These are
topics of interest for me and I am hoping much of her predictions are
fruitful. I do feel that she is overly optimistic for 2014 about
mhealth apps, as I feel there are too many problems still to be
worked out for beneficial use. I anticipate 2015 may be a better
target.
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