Patients Struggling with Obesity & Metabolic Disease Deserve a Path to Better Health
One of my relatives has been dealing with the effects of Type 2 diabetes for years. Just last week, he went to the hospital for emergency dialysis, and he’ll now have to undergo dialysis treatments three times per week indefinitely.
While visiting him at the hospital, I happened to see a stack of papers he received from a nutritionist, designed to ‘educate’ him about what he should and shouldn’t eat once he returned to his home. What I saw made me angry because I knew there was no way these educational materials would have any chance of helping him become more healthy.
The 8 ½” x 11” sheets of paper he was given were filled with vague, hedging, and sometimes conflicting messages about potassium, sodium, sugar, and protein. One page warned about the dangers of potassium and contained a long list of foods to avoid because of the levels of potassium they contained. A different page highlighted the benefits of potassium and made no mention of avoiding it.
One page prominently featured a bold, stand-alone sentence: “Sodium is a nutrient to get less of,” while saying in a different place that “sodium is essential for nerve and muscle function, and is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body.” I continue to be puzzled how you can confidently tell someone to consume less of substance that is essential for life without first asking them how much of it they consume.
The information presented about sugar was no less confusing. One section advised to reduce “added sugar” and to keep levels below 10% of total calories consumed, but another section offered pancakes and cereal as examples of foods that could be topped with fruit, and 100% fruit juice was offered as a healthy beverage choice.
None of the information provided could realistically be used to lose weight or prevent weight gain. Nowhere was the issue of controlling cravings or achieving satiety through the consumption of healthy foods even addressed.
This is just anecdotal evidence of a problem, but it is consistent with experiences I’ve had with the medical establishment, and it lines up with dozens of stories I’ve heard from others who struggled with obesity (and, in some cases, metabolic disease) for decades.
I’ve had doctors tell me I was overweight and that I needed to drop 40 or more pounds, but never was I given any sort of instruction about how I might successfully accomplish that incredibly difficult feat.
What the patient struggling with obesity and metabolic disease needs is a path toward health — a clear set of instructions that, if followed, has a legitimate chance of helping him lose weight sustainably and reversing the symptoms of disease.
What the patient receives instead is approval to eat just about anything, as long as it’s in moderation. I believe the medical profession knows better, but refuses to provide the advice needed for one of two reasons: 1) they are unwilling to tell the patient something the patient doesn’t want to hear, or 2) they’ve been influenced in some way by the food industry.
I recently posted a few tweets about my frustration, and immediately got some pushback. One of my tweets summed up my feelings as follows:
Call me crazy, but I think it would be great if when a patient w T2D left hospital, he had set of dietary guidelines that met following criteria:
1) easy to understand
2) not impossible to follow
3) beneficial to his health
What I’m seeing plenty of #2 at expense of #1 & 3.
A short time later I received a disappointing response from an RD and PhD, who said:
Fair, I certainly agree we need #s 1–3 above to be helpful to patients. However, I would say #2 should be the biggest focus — If nothing is functionally implemented, then no matter how good 1 & 3 are, it wont matter.
That, I’m afraid, sums up the problem. If we provide information that is not understandable, and, more importantly, not really beneficial to the patient’s health, who cares how easy it is to follow? Who cares if a patient can follow a diet of pancakes and cereal topped with fruit, fruit juices, and apple sauce, if that diet does nothing to improve his health?
Fortunately, there is now a growing number doctors and other medical professionals who are having a great deal of success prescribing diets that actually address the issue of cravings and satiety, and help patients sustainably lose weight and reverse the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disease.
We can argue all day about the “optimal” way to lose weight, but I implore medical professionals to focus on giving their patients a road map that actually has a chance of working. Provide them with an example of what a day’s worth of food on a specific diet looks like. Explain how they can get past the cravings, how they can lose weight sustainably, while maintaining and building muscle.
Doctors, if you’re not able to provide your patients with a set of directions that leads to a healthy weight and elimination of disease, please get the hell out of the way. I’ll send you a list of doctors who can.
Chris S. Cornell weighed 278 pounds when he turned 51. At age 53, he discovered the benefits of a healthy low-carb diet, and now, at 55, he weighs 190 pounds and is in the best shape of his life. He is grateful to the doctors, scientists, and others who explained to him how, by removing added sugar, processed carbs, grains, and seed oils from his diet, and by adding healthy proteins, he could lose weight sustainably and never again experience hunger or cravings. He is looking forward to the day when every patient is given a roadmap to health that works as well for them.
