Diabetes Myths

In a few days I’ll have another article about the Conversation Maps. Today the focus is myths.

I’ve always thought that Diabetes UK has a much better web page about diabetes myths than the ADA has. That web page came to my mind when the facilitators for the training session I attended brought up myths. And I also reflected on some of the myths I’ve heard recently.

1. The most insidious one is the belief that diabetes is progressive. I wrote about that myth in a recent article here.

2. An A1C level of 7 percent is good enough to prevent complications. This is the level that the ADA sets. It’s better by far than the typical level that most of us with diabetes have. But if we stay at 7 percent for many years, our diabetes will indeed become a progressive disease.

3. A truly cynical myth is that the pharmaceutical companies know how to cure diabetes, but they are holding back because they can make so much money off of us. Sure, the drugs we buy from them cost a lot. But anyone who believes this myth simply doesn’t understand how scientists and researchers think. Gretchen Becker makes it clear how scientists think. Who wouldn’t want the Nobel Prize for curing diabetes?

4. Likewise, many skeptical people think that it’s safer to use herbs than prescription drugs to help control their diabetes. They forget that herbs are drugs, as complementary medicine expert Laura Shane-McWhorter told me.

The ADA’s and UK Diabetes’ web pages about myths covered the other big myths that came to mind. But this morning I had the chance to discuss these fallacies with the wisest Certified Diabetes Educator I know.

She’s been through the Conversation Maps training, and she agrees with me it’s a myth that diabetes has to be progressive. The second one on her list is the myth that “a carb is a carb is a carb.”

Not only are different forms of carbohydrates chemically different from each other but they also differ in how they act on our blood glucose levels. While fiber is a carb, it has little or no effect in raising BG. Many starchy foods have a great effect, but they vary greatly from refined flour on the high side to barley on the low side. Sugars have some effect.

Both her list and mine contains several more myths. What other myths would you like to expose?