Health Comment: The war on diabetes needs facts, not scaremongering

[Northerner]

Many people will have been worried by scary headlines last week suggesting one in three of us is pre-diabetic.

According to a British Medical Journal report, a third of Britons are on the brink of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and potentially wiping years off their lives.

Don’t panic!

As an expert who has spent 20 years studying the condition I know you either have the disease or you don’t.

This notion of pre-diabetes is confusing and unhelpful when the disease is now so common.

To aid understanding of this crisis, we need clear facts.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-diabetes-needs-facts-not-scaremongering.html

 

[Laura davies]

Hey Northerner thats great you can put people's minds at rest. My parents have read articles in newspapers and documentary on TV this past month and have got quite scared for me bless them.

 

[Northerner]

Hey Northerner thats great you can put people's minds at rest. My parents have read articles in newspapers and documentary on TV this past month and have got quite scared for me bless them.

The problem is that they try to keep the message as simple as possible so people will take it in, but it really does need expanding with (correct!) facts. Saying that if you get fat you'll get diabetes and your feet will fall off clearly doesn't work anyway, because it's not stopping people getting fat and most of them don't actually get diabetes of any type. And, of course, there is the confusion that inevitably occurs because people don't always get told that Type 1 has completely different origins and risk factors.

To me, the scare tactics simply serve to scare those who actually do get diabetes, because then they feel guilty and are told that 'all' they have to do is lose weight and it will go, which also isn't true - it may be controlled, but not gone.

 

[robert@fm]

Once again they spout the "obesity causes diabetes" fallacy. 😡 I had weight problems long before I had any say in what or how much I ate, and in my case at least, I suspect that diabetes (or pre-diabetes to be exact) caused obesity, not the other way around.