Diabetes 'Experts' Forcing Complications on Patients

Yes, I am making this accusation and it makes sense to me. Why else would people of importance in the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) speak so confidently about type 2 diabetes not needing to test regularly and to rely on their A1c results only.

Dr. Robert Ratner, chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association and Alan J. Garber, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas are both recipients of money from Big Pharma. I also have to wonder if they also receive large sums of money from Big Food, Big Agriculture, and Big Chemical. These two doctors and others within these organizations received big sums of money to limit what most patients can do.

This is why they insist that we do not test to make the complications happen. This in turn is a favor to the rest of the doctors to give them patients to treat. It is a shame that the insurance industry has to go along with the pronouncements of these doctors, but they are in the business of showing a profit. Therefore, their leaders are more than happy to limit testing supplies. What they do not realize is that the complications will cause greater expenses in the future than the test strips will cost now.

This is part of the reason I have such a dislike for the people in the ADA and the AACE that are in a position to influence guidelines and position statements. This in turn affects most of the actions of other healthcare professionals in the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). This is also the reason most of their members do not talk about testing or promote testing.

This leaves people with type 2 diabetes who cannot afford extra test strips, managing their diabetes in the dark without the means to use testing supplies that will aid them in more efficient diabetes management. These patients will not be able to determine the most reliable time to test postprandial and often find it impossible to test in pairs to help them decide how a meal affects their blood glucose levels. Those of us that have been able to do this have found that we are better able to manage our diabetes.

We have found that by reducing the number of carbohydrates consumed, we are better able to manage our diabetes. Yet both members of the AADE and AND continue to promote carbohydrates and reduced fat and this makes diabetes management more difficult for most people with diabetes. Yes, the ADA has opened the door for low carbohydrate consumption, but the members of these organizations have yet to put this into practice. Maybe the officers have accepted this, but the general membership still follows the old guidelines and the two organizations have not produced new position statements to affirm to the membership the acceptance of anything but the prior guidelines.

All of this creates an uphill battle for people with diabetes that desire to manage diabetes at a level to prevent complications. It is still possible, but takes more effort and education which most with type 2 diabetes do not receive. Most are required to self-educate to be able to manage their diabetes.