May 18, 2014

Diabetes Cure – Not Today

Excuse me for being blunt, but someone needs to be. When certified diabetes educators with other titles like registered dietitian, we need always to be concerned about which conflict of interest we are receiving. Is it Big Food or Big Pharma that is being promoted? I always take the first title behind the name as being the one of most concern.

That led to a surprise in this blog on the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) website. I had a difficult time swallowing her reasoning for letting a myth take over her discussion. After her class hears the myth, she concluded the blog by asking, “So why is it still so difficult to get patients to “buy in?””

Why she had to ask this, when she answered her concluding question in the paragraph above it, still puzzles me. “Most are looking for that “miracle pill” that helps them lose weight and improve physical abilities while allowing them to eat as much as they want.” It would seem to me that she has more educating to do and very unwilling listeners. I have no sympathy in this case because she allowed a myth to be promoted in a diabetes class.

Yes, I have had people tell me that this is the twenty-first century, so there has to be a cure. I try not to let this go any further and if it does, I say until they can produce the article or advertisement, it is not part of the discussion. I have had one person produce the advertisement and with that, I was able to show the person why and how he had been mislead. No, he was not happy, but after making him answer questions about the advertisement, he had a better understanding. After that, he thanked me for making him decipher the advertisement.

Back to the blog, and why I have a problem with CDEs. Yes, the author did mention diet and exercise, but it was more like a mandate than education. Rather than stretch their brains, many CDE’s resort to mandates and expect people to follow. This is also a reason for lack of buy-in by patients.

I am surprised that the dogma of consuming whole grains was not introduced. That is the only positive I can identify in the blog.

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