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Permalink Reply by Lila on December 10, 2012 at 3:27pm

Just as shocking as Diabetes UK's advice to eat starchy carbohydrates (it recommends 1/3 of your plate should be starchy carbs) and to aim for five portions of 'fruit and vegetables' a day, one portion for example being 'a banana or apple, a handful of grapes, a tablespoon of dried fruit, a small glass of fruit juice or fruit smoothie...'.

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Permalink Reply by karen on December 10, 2012 at 4:01pm

those are all fine for me to enjoy and I do so with no trouble. None of those foods are cause of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, amputation...or diabetes.

brownchops, the article is not so shocking to me, I was told this more than 30 years ago, the statistics might have changed though.

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Permalink Reply by Lila on December 11, 2012 at 5:11am

I also eat all those foods but can you imagine five portions of fruit a day? Like 5 glasses of fruit juice? Might as well have 5 servings of full-sugar Coke, it amounts to the same effect on blood sugar.

The point I was trying to make is that all this is kinda ironic. The original report makes the usual mistake of conflating 'diabetes' with 'uncontrolled diabetes'. Is it the simple fact of having diabetes that worsens health outcomes dramatically? Or is it the high, uncontrolled blood sugars due to uncontrolled diabetes?

Frankly, if I followed Diabetes UK's advice to fill 1/3 of my plate with starch and to have five portions of fruit a day, I'd also be having high, uncontrolled blood sugars and be straight on the path towards all these nasty health outcomes.

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Permalink Reply by karen on December 11, 2012 at 9:48am

I can imagine, I prefer fruits more than any other food. Fruit juice...not so much - bleh.

the national diabetes audit also revealed" a large proportion of these heart attack could have been prevented through better education and care".

I suspect that is true, and with better education and care then would follow "control". I can't stand the words control or uncontrolled for diabetes. One day can be well controlled, the next a ride in the amusement park.

No matter what you eat there are ways to control your blood sugars. I happen to require insulin, even if I eat nothing. That is not controlling my condition, it is living with it.

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Permalink Reply by Brian (bsc) on December 10, 2012 at 3:39pm

Actually, I am surprised at this figure. Why? Because it is way low. The chance of a heart attack when you have an HbA1c of 6% is double that of a non-diabetic and that is independent of cholesterol.

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Permalink Reply by still_young_at_heart on December 10, 2012 at 4:05pm

Hi Brian -

That's worse than I thought. Do you have a cite or a site?

Thanks,

Maurie

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Permalink Reply by Doris D on December 10, 2012 at 4:11pm

my thoughts too brian

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Permalink Reply by Brian (bsc) on December 11, 2012 at 3:46pm

If you look at the results of the EPIC study, men with an HbA1c of 5.5-5.9% had a CVD risk double that of those with an HbA1c of < 5% with age adjusted relative risk (adjusted for a number of factors including cholesterol).

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Permalink Reply by Holger Schmeken on December 12, 2012 at 1:01am

For those why try to achieve good control this might be demotivational. Does it help anyone to read the cruel truth in statistical figures? Fear is the worst advisor you can have.

The real question is: Why do doctors still think that an A1c of 7% is fine? Even TuAnalyze shows the area from 6.5 to 7% as green. With all the evidence it should be yellow. An A1c of 7.5% is not a minimal miss of the target. It is an average of 164 mg/dl. Well above the kidney threshold leading to high amounts of tryglicerides in the blood stream. Still the medical community is treating it as a minor glitch in control. In contrast to its reputation and technical shortcommings the A1c can be a good guideline. All it needs are tighter targets and earlier adjustments of the treatment. This includes to switch people earlier to insulin treatments. One year of tight diets, sporty activity and loosing weight should be really sufficient to make this decision. Instead we see people being switched from one T2 medication to the other as if insulin is the last or worst choice to make.

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Permalink Reply by Holger Schmeken on December 12, 2012 at 2:38am

Please read the first sentence as: For those who try...

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