Eat With Knowledge

If you haven’t already heard, one of America’s “favorite” chefs, Paula Deen, confessed on the Today Show that she has been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.  She found out from a routine physical from her doctor 3 years ago and has been living with diabetes ever since.

(source)

As a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator), I’m happy that this story is getting so much attention. 

• 25.8 million people in the United States have Type 2 Diabetes (8.3% of the population)
• Out of these people, 7 million don’t even know they have it
• What’s scary–> 79 million people have pre-diabetes, that’s right- 79 million.
• Diabetes can lead to scary complications (heart disease, eye disease, nerve disease, kidney disease, even amputations).  Also, you feel HORRIBLE when your blood sugars are high.  What’s important to understand is that diet & exercise play a HUGE part in managing Type 2 Diabetes and preventing it in the first place.

*One side note, please don’t get Type 2 Diabetes confused with Type 1 Diabetes.  Type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas makes no insulin at all and you need to be on injections or an insulin pump the rest of your life.  This is a scary situation too, and the complications are very scary as well.  But Type 1′s can actually be ”healthier” than Type 2′s because they don’t have the metabolic syndrome going on- Type 1′s have a hormone deficiency of insulin in their body and they need to replace it to live.

My thoughts…

Everyone has a right to privacy, including health information.  If she never said anything about diabetes, she could go on cooking the way she does and I wouldn’t have cared so much (I wouldn’t have agreed with it but I certainly wouldn’t be blogging about it).  However, now that she has partnered with a big pharmaceutical company in the diabetes world, she is suddenly a “person of interest” for my clients and my colleagues.  So we are going to have an opinion.

As you can see from Paula’s new launched website, she is making money from this deal with Novo Nordisk and partnering up to talk about “Diabetes In a New Light”.  She is taking a medication called Victoza, which is an injectable hormone that works with the body’s digestive track (specifically something called GLP-1, a hormone).  GLP-1 helps the body to make insulin in response to food, and helps the food leave the digestive track a little slower, helping you to feel full (to not overeat).  However it DOES NOT give you “freedom” to eat whatever you want.  Your body will still digest those carbohydrates and raise your blood sugars if you eat too much.  Also- I’m surprised if this is her only drug she is taking- Metformin is usually the drug of choice for first-line therapy… which makes me think this is more about the money than about her health.

Paula mentioned that genes play a huge part in developing diabetes diagnosis and I agree.  However, nutrition and exercise play an even bigger role in diabetes prevention and management.  Since Paula is now in the public eye with her health, I think it’s time to step up and take responsibility for the food she cooks and presents to her audience.  I’m so interested to see how she handles this when it comes to her cooking and presentation of the dishes she loves (usually coated in butter and sugar).  However I’m NOT impressed with the recipes on her website- she needs to do better than this (which was the first recipe I clicked on when I was on her website- ugggg!!)

Remember, we all have responsibility when it comes to our health.  Take the steps you need to to prevent diabetes- eat right, exercise, practice stress management, and go to your doctor at least once/year for a physical and blood work.