American Diabetes Association – Giving Conflicting Advice

Low Carb RN (CDE)

As a Certified Diabetes Educator, I keep up with reading the published standards from the “leading” diabetes organizations (doesn’t mean I agree with them, but I read them).  In reading the most recent published standards from the American Diabetes Association, I was surprised to find their official position statement on healthy eating is nearly IDENTICAL to mine (yep!)  It is as follows:

“To promote and support healthful eating patterns, emphasizing a variety of nutrient dense foods in appropriate portion sizes, in order to improve overall health and specifically to:

1. Attain individualized glycemic (blood glucose), blood pressure and lipid goals
   
2. Achieve and maintain body weight goals
   
3. Delay or prevent complications of diabetes.”
   

Why was I so surprised to read this?  Because almost nothing that they teach to the public aligns with their OWN position statement! 

I want to analyze this position statement very closely because, as I said, it so closely mimics with what I teach, namely 1. EAT REAL FOOD (without overeating) and 2. EAT TO YOUR METER.  It SEEMS like the ADA is completely on target with this position statement.

So why do I NOT support the ADA?

Read why here: https://lowcarbrn.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/american-diabetes-association-giving-conflicting-advice/

She's good isn't she?

I found another one recently but seem to have mislaid the link.

Back in the day the ADA were quite blatant. They had pages called "Eat More Starch!" and "Make Starch The Star!" where they extolled the virtue of HCLF while admitting "you may need to adjust your medication" ie. in an upwards and more profitable direction.

They recommended three meals of 45 - 60g carbs and three snacks of 15 - 30g per day. AFAICR "Medical Nutrition Therapy" could improve A1c by 1 - 2%. Meanwhile people in their own forums were routinely doing 5 - 8% and often over 10%

After much criticism, during the brief reign of John Buse, they admitted that perhaps diabetics could eat less carbs as long as it was only temporary and for weight loss, not glycemic control, and gave an absolute minimum of 135g carbs/day. They gave MNT an improved rating, up to I think 2.9% improvement in A1c.

They also lost a few sponsors, so John Buse went away.

The stopped actually blatantly recommending carb quantities, but when someone back-calculated by subtracting their fat and protein recommendations from their calorie recommendations, voila! exactly the same number of carbs.

That was the first time they used fog. It wasn't the last.