Although my direct diabetes experience comes from living with T1D, I’ve learned a lot about T2D in the process. Dr. Bret Scher’s Diet Doctor podcast featuring Dr. Bahtki Paul gives me hope that new ideas from younger doctors will create a better and healthier future. She is truly a breath of fresh air.
Dr. Paul’s radiant demeanor must work well with her patients; it is infectious. She describes herself as a newly-blossomed lifestyle endocrinologist. She is board certified as an endocrinologist and earned a masters in nutrition as well. Imagine that, a doctor who actually knows about the value of food instead of one who complains about their lack of nutrition education! Dr. Bahtki practices in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
What makes her different than the typical endo who treats T2D? To begin with is her fundamental refusal to see T2D as a progressive disease marked by the continual addition of medication and a worsening prognosis.
She believes that if you can put in place tools that immediately reward the patient, then patients will maintain motivation and can lead to remission of T2D. (The controversial term, reversal, is used here, but I can look past that.) Two of her tools are using a low-carb diet, at least temporarily, coupled with using a continuous glucose monitor.
She actually remotely follows patient’s CGM data, especially early on in the process, so that she can safely remove medications as she implements lifestyle changes. She said that her medical education placed heavy emphasis on starting drugs but gave her no info on de-prescribing drugs.
She describes her transition from working in a clinic where she could only spend 10 or 15 minutes with each patient to moving to a community clinic where she could spend more time with each patient but also free her hand to implement more radical changes. Changes she made include group Zoom meetings and placing CGMs on many of her T2Ds.
She sees CGM as a breakthrough technology with the power to motivate her T2Ds with immediate feedback about diet and exercise changes. I’ve long believed that CGM is first and foremost an educational tool. Its power lies in its ability to provide timely data to the patient and by doing so to stoke the motivational furnace to persist with important lifestyle changes.
This video just came out today, January 4, 2022. It certainly raised my hope for better, more effective treatment of T2D – a nice way to start the day and this new year! Enjoy.
