Diabetes Blogs

Of course one of the main concerns of a newly-diagnosed diabetic is food.  What can and can't I eat?  What should and shouldn't I eat?  As previously discussed, many people start off with "avoid sugar" but of course there is more to it than that.

Dietary advice in the UK stems from the British Dietetic Association - the professional body of dietitians, in conjunction with the Department of Health.  Since this is the official source, most other sources of advice (doctors, nurses, Diabetes UK etc) follow the guidance given out by these two bodies.  After all they are the experts.

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Not a week goes by without me seeing someone claim to have a cure for diabetes.  Its odd because considering there are 2 million diabetics in the UK, you would have thought it would have made the news.

Except of course that it hasn't made the news because its nonsense.

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I've written about this before, but I can't do a series on diabetes myths without mentioning calories since they may be the biggest con and/or misconception in nutrition.

We are regularly told by health authorities, food manufacturers and the media that we need to eat a calorie controlled diet.  But why?

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I remember at one point when I was a kid my mother saying "if you eat too many sweets you'll be diabetic" or something along those lines.  Its one of those "everyone knows" things which isn't actually true.  These days, more people are aware that its not true, but there is a general perception among the public that diabetes is all about sugar, so just have a cappuccino without the sugar, right?  Maybe I'll only have half this skinny muffin cos its probably got some sugar in it.

The situation is not helped by people talking about "blood sugar" rather than "blood glucose".  When you mention sugar, people have all kinds of preconceptions but if people started talking about "blood glucose" more often then people would not make the same assumptions they currently do about the word "sugar".

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This is the first in a series of blog posts about the most common diabetes myths.

This is something you see all the time in the media, in general news reports, newspaper articles and the implication is everywhere, even if the words aren't.  Type 2s are made to feel like its their own fault they got diabetes because if you get fat, you get diabetes, right?

Wrong.

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The T2 "You don't need to test" Myth.

There were 2 studies published in 2007 and 2008 which appear to be used as the main justification for the claim "you don't need to test" in relation to Type 2 diabetics.  These studies were both flawed in this reasoning and their conclusions incorrect.

The DIGEM study published in 2007 by Farmer et al started out with the objective of using Self Monitoring of Blood Glucose (SMBG) to reinforce the prescribed dietary advice, using 3 BG readings each on 2 days per week.  However the patients were told not to change their diet because of the results they obtained and were encouraged to stick more rigidly to the prescribed diet.  
"They were also given training and support in timing, interpreting, and using the results of their blood glucose test to enhance motivation and to maintain adherence to diet, physical activity, and drug regimens" [1]

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What is Second Life?

This question comes up time to time since we have a few people on Second Life in recent months and it get a mention in the forums occasionally. So I thought I should put up a blog post to explain.

Second Life (SL) is an online 3D virtual world. For most of the time DSF members use it as more of a 3D chatroom than anything else, although we have not quite got around to using microphones yet. However there's more to it than that.

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Since I am flying today, I've been checking up on the current restrictions for airport security and checking through my hand luggage for any stray items from previous trips.

All very logical, but I am certain that at least 2 people in the queue for security ahead of me will not have done.

I went to the Liverpool passport office yesterday.  You now have to go through a metal detector on the way in.  There's a long queue before the metal detector so you know whats coming well in advance.  To pass the time you can read the notices advising you that if you joke about having a bomb you will get arrested.

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Mention going somewhere on business and people immediately think in terms of the exotic and start comparing it in their heads to some form of holiday or short break.

Nah.

These things are never fun, as anyone who has done a few will tell you. Off to Milan this week for an overnight stay and meeting. What this means in effect is the following...

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I've recently started making clothes again in Second Life. Part of the reason for this is that we have extended DSF island to the extent that it costs $8 USD per month. Half of the island is free, but we are having to pay for the other half.

However with a little effort and a bit of startup cash, its possible to make money from Second Life. In fact there are now millionaires who have made their fortune from SL and other virtual worlds. One of the first who was publically known is Ansche Chung who I heard about 3 years ago. She made a million dollars (US), moved to china and set up a business employing at least 9 people purely making money out of virtual worlds, with SL being the main one.

So if other people can do it then it should be possible for me to make enough money from SL to be able to pay for the island.

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Why Counting Calories Makes You Fat

For years, medical advice and diets have been thrown at us in relation to "calorie control" and for years, people have had great difficulty losing weight with these kinds of diet. A great deal of hardship has been gone through to lose relatively small amounts of weight. Considering it recently I've come to the conclusion that calories are a bit of a con and that's why calorie control does not work.

Q: How do they measure calories in food?

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Are Petitions a Waste of Time?

...and should we just give up?

This is a question which rears its head from time to time in relation to dietary advice and test strips in particular. My answer to that would be "No, but we should be prepared for disappointment".

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When talking to T2s, I generally try to get across the importance of testing and in some cases its an uphill battle.  We not only fight the medics and dieticians advice, but habits and cultural conditioning.

 Because dieticians advice (and so medics advice) changes very little simply because we are diabetic, there is a cultural conditioning element to food in the UK and probably most of the rest of the world.  Since the "Fat is evil" message started getting out in the 50s, we have become accustomed to eating a lot of carbs.

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One of the projects I really need to get my finger out with is recording BG numbers on my phone.  Although all meters will store your BG results, they mostly do not have any way of recording the additional information that makes the data useful.

 I have been using PDA phones for years.  These are basically a phone and computer combined and the ones I have been using have a version of Windows on them.  Frankly I spend more time reading books and news on it than anything else but it has other uses.

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We had some problems with chat over the last week, which have now been fixed.  The website uses a plugin for chat called Mibbit which makes it a lot easier for people to get into chat.

 Traditionally, people needed to download and install a chat client such as mIRC, IceChat or Chatzilla in order to get onto chat.  People who are not too technical tend to have one or two problems getting these clients configured to work properly.  However Mibbit is embedded in a web page so all that someone needs to do is click on a link, pick a name and they are into the chatroom with 2 clicks.

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