No Hope for Carbohydrate Woman

Hope Warshaw is coming under fire in the USA and in Great Britain, in forums and blogs. I find this amusing in so many ways and at least people are holding her feet to the fire. When Hope Warshaw (current 2016 AADE president) makes a mistake, she really makes a big one.

She uses a consistent theme and this is one of them: This is a quote from her article: “Old Dogma: People with type 2 diabetes should follow a low carbohydrate diet. New Reality: Nutrition recommendations for people with type 2 diabetes from the American Diabetes Association and other health authorities echo the recently unveiled U.S. 2010 Dietary Guidelines (1/31/11) for carbohydrate: about 45 to 65 percent of calories.”

“Old Dogma: Losing weight will make blood glucose levels plummet no matter how long you have had type 2 diabetes. The message that people continually hear from their providers is “If you’d only lose weight, your blood glucose would go down.” And the common reply from people with type 2 is “I’ll try harder with my ‘diet’ over the next few months, but please don’t put me on a diabetes medication.””

“New Reality: Research shows that the greatest impact of weight loss on blood glucose is in the first few months and years after diagnosis.”

She does make some sense here, but with a low carb, high fat way of eating, weight will continue to decrease and level off near ideal weight. This is where she is so wrong. High carbohydrate, low fat diets fail and weight is normally rising when people follow this diet.

I can agree with her when she says: “The reality is that if blood glucose is out of control, it’s time to progress to blood glucose-lowering medication(s), because it’s doubtful that weight loss alone will get and keep blood glucose under control. Today, most experts, including the American Diabetes Association and American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, agree that people with type 2 should start on a blood glucose-lowering medication that decreases insulin resistance–the core problem in type 2–at diagnosis.”

She is off base because CDEs think more oral medication is always best when many need to consider insulin. Being a dual title RD/CDE, you know that she will do the bidding of Big Food and also Big Pharma. It is in her nature to promote carbohydrates and has been involved in several disputes in the past because of this.

This ode to carbohydrate woman is from June 17, 2013 and fits quite well.