Today I learned that the American Diabetes Association has released updated guidelines for the management of diet in adults with type II diabetes (Evert AB, et al. Diabetes Care 2013;36:3821). At the time of writing this post the full article is available at the Diabetes Care web site.

 
These recommendations are the first update in 5 years, at a time when obesity, which often results in diabetes, has become so common that some experts have defined it as an epidemic.  In my view, the term epidemic does not apply here, because you do not catch diabetes. However, these recommendations are important because they recognize that there is no one diet that will be suitable for everyone. I am sure we have all seen people who seem to eat nothing yet gain lots of weight, and others who eat  large amounts but gain very little weight.  It all seems so unfair, doesn’t it!
 
Now that the American Medical Association describes obesity as a disease, maybe this new position statement from the American Diabetes Association will help more doctors understand how to advise those of us who are overweight to avoid becoming obese, and to avoid becoming diabetic.
 
The recommendations are 22 pages long, so it is going to take a long time to go through them. Also, one of the interesting messages that I have seen is that nutritional advice needs to be given on an individual basis. This is an important step forward in helping everyone recognize that they must take responsibility for managing their own health. Doctors and dietitians, in my opinion, need to recognize  that they need to focus on giving individual patients. The tools that they need, rather than prescribing “lose some weight” for everyone.
 
Let me know what you think in the comments section.

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