The BDA and the diet of slow death.

People sometimes ask me, why am I so critical of the British Dietetic Association. The reasons are many. The treatment and care in the UK for diabetics is often lamentable. When you consider approximately 90% of UK diabetics are type two, we are talking about three million people, the dietary information provided to these people, is very often poor at best, and criminal at worst. For various reasons type two diabetics become insulin resistant, and their blood glucose levels become dangerously high. Long term, if blood glucose levels are not reduced, serious diabetic complications very often occur. The group of foods known as carbohydrates raise BG much faster and higher than proteins and fats. The BDA advise diabetics to base meals on starchy carbohydrates and minimise saturated fats. The worse possible diet for a diabetic.

So, following this diet, which almost guarantees dangerously high blood glucose levels, what does the type two diabetic do, he turns to medication. Most type two medications are expensive, all carry side effects, and some such as Avandia and Actos have been banned for killing people. Most drugs don’t work on most people. Not my opinion, fact, as stated by a man who should know, none other than a Glaxo boss Allen Roses, and I quote “most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them” said here over ten years ago, not much has changed. The bottom line, most type two diabetics cannot rely on drugs to keep BG under control. Almost universally, well controlled type two diabetics, report the only way they can hold safe BG numbers, is by cutting back, often drastically, on the very foods the BDA say should be the mainstay of their meals, namely starchy carbohydrates.

It seems to me the straight thinker has to ask themselves, does the BDA know what I have stated above. If they do not know, they are a very long way from being fit for purpose, and should withdraw from giving diabetics dietary information. The alternative must be they do know, and for reasons best known to themselves, they are participating in the downfall of countless diabetics. If this grim situation was just my opinion, my conclusions and opinion, would be meaningless, but that is not the case. All over the world, highly skilled and knowledgeable medical professionals, from A1 rated science Professors, Cardiologists, and GP’s are in agreement, a strict reduction in starchy carbohydrates should be the first line of attack for type two diabetics. Very often a type two diabetic can reverse the chief symptom of diabetes, high BG, to non diabetic, with dietary changes alone. Thereby living a long diabetes complication free life. If a low carb diet was recommended, as a viable treatment option for all diabetics, the monetary savings to highly stressed NHS budgets would be in the £billions. The reduction of painful misery for countless diabetics would be immeasurable.

Eddie