This year’s Scottish PHC conference was as St Stephen’s Renfield Church Centre in Glasgow. The main theme of the conference was heart health. Many of the behaviours that improve heart health also improve health generally, and these will be familiar to readers of this blog. In this series of articles I will summarise some of the content of the day.
Dr David Unwin: Using continuous blood sugar monitors in Type Two Diabetes
David is a GP and he first started low -carbing ten years ago when he developed type two diabetes.
He got great results with low- carbing and persuaded his partners to join him in promoting the diet to type two diabetics in his practice. He has kept meticulous records of the transformations that have occurred in Southport, and also has tracked the savings he has made in medications that he would otherwise have had to use.
Lately, he been using the Dexcom continuous blood sugar monitor, which works very much like the Freestyle Libre. He has prescribed this in his practice for type two diabetics as well as type one diabetics, and has found that patients get faster and surer results when they can see immediate improvement when they stop eating sugar and starch and immediate high blood sugars when they do.
In the USA he has been advising United Healthcare Insurance on his findings and they are introducing the system for patients and will offer reduced premiums for users.
David was pleased to say that a recent innovation is a sensor that combines blood sugar testing and ketone testing in the same patch. This is going to be released by Abbott shortly. This is great news particularly for type one diabetics. I’m not sure if if will be useful or not for those on ketogenic diets, time will tell.
Jen Unwin PhD : Conquering Food Addiction with Low-Carb Eating
Jen is married to David. She is a Clinical Psychologist and is interested in people who struggle with low carb diets due to addiction to sugar and starch. Often processed food additives make the food irresistible to the person. Other food stuff addictions include nuts, dairy, breakfast cereals, and then of course there is alcohol.
She says that 10% of the general population are food addicted in some way.
20% of the population presenting to GPs are food addicted in some way.
55% of those with a binge eating disorder are addicted to food in some way.
She uses a modified Yale Addiction Scale for diagnosis.
There is a craving for the food and a compulsion to eat it. The person tends to increase the amount consumed over time to feel okay. “I can’t eat two biscuits, I have to have the whole packet”.
They neglect other activities in order to eat their food of choice. They feel a loss of control over their eating. They get withdrawal effects if they don’t eat it. Despite being aware that the food is causing them ill effects or harm, they continue to eat it in excess amounts.
Often depression and anxiety are the main symptoms.
In treating patients, Jen says that the person affected needs to clean up their diet, exercise to improve mental and physical health, and get back to healthy social habits. Gradually they can move to abstinence from the craved for food.
Those affected can’t have “cheat days”, like other people on diets perhaps can.
Jen has recently published a paper showing that control of Binge Eating Disorder is indeed possible with a low carb diet and reports that even a year after the intervention, the patients remained in remission from their compulsions.
She has released a book called Fork In The Road which explains how to gain mastery over food compulsion.
Dr Susan Pierce Thompson is a US psychologist who has also written, blogged and posted videos on this subject. She calls her programme Bright Line Eating.
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