A US based clinical dietician, Adekemi Adejare, has identified nutrition as solution to diabetes, stating that dietary factors are vital in the management and prevention of type II diabetes.
Adejare, who is part of the South Jersey Heath care stated this in a book ‘Diet for Prevention & Treatment of Diabetes.’
According to her, “diet is a leading contributor to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Diabetes is one of the biggest global public health problems and the prevalence is estimated to increase from 425 million people in 2017 to 629 million by 2045.”
She said urgent solutions for slowing, or even reversing this trend are needed, especially from investment in modifiable factors including diet, physical activity, and weight.
“The importance of nutrition in the management and prevention of type 2 diabetes through its effect on weight and metabolic control is clear. However, nutrition is also one of the most controversial and difficult aspects of the management of type 2 diabetes.
“The idea of being on a “diet” for a chronic lifelong condition like diabetes is enough to put many people off as knowing what to eat and maintaining an optimal eating pattern are challenging. Medical nutrition therapy was introduced to guide a systematic and evidence based approach to the management of diabetes through diet, and its effectiveness has been demonstrated, but difficulties remained.
“Although most diabetes guidelines recommend starting pharmacotherapy only after first making nutritional and physical activity lifestyle changes, this is not always followed in practice globally. Most physicians are not trained in nutrition interventions and this is a barrier to counselling patients.
“Talking to patients about nutrition is time consuming. In many settings, outside of specialised diabetes centres where trained nutritionists/educators are available, advice on nutrition for diabetes is, at best, a printed menu given to the patient. In resource poor settings, when type II diabetes is diagnosed, often the patient leaves the clinic with a list of new medications and little else.
“There is wide variation in the use of dietary modification alone to manage type 2 diabetes: for instance, estimates of fewer than 5-10% of patients with type 2 diabetes in India and 31% in the UK are reported, although patients treated by lifestyle measures may be less closely managed than patients on medication for type 2 diabetes,” she said.
