I like these videos. I think the touch of sarcasm is just right and very much in tune with the popular culture’s sense of humor.
It tries to fix whatever has broken down about this doctor office conversation to date. People are leaving this appointment and what should be sobering news with simply a extra dose of denial. The sarcastic humor seems to cut through this denial and lays the ugly truth out there where it can hopefully germinate into positive motivation.
Are these videos really appearing on TV? I don’t have a TV.
Although I am not their target market since I have Type 1. I take offense to this ad campaign for several reasons, most have already been stated here.
They took a huge advertising budget and created a campaign that totally missed the mark. Lots of money terribly spent. I am all for snarkiness and sarcasm, but this was nowhere close to successful.
Like @askmanny already stated, it feels like a slap in the face.
I have several friends that are T2 that NEVER presented with the symptoms they discuss. Specifically being overweight and inactive.
As one of those who presented with none of the symptoms they discuss. I was never told I have “prediabetes,” though my doctor wanted to call it that, because I was fit, not overweight, at the time and quite active. He found it difficult to believe that I had diabetes. Of course, I suppose I wasn’t the target market for these ads either – after all, I already had a fairly healthy lifestyle. The prediabetes test, of course, would have made me feel confident that I was SAFE, or at least low-risk.
The humor approach isn’t bad - I’m not so concerned about the bacon concern (bacon being a fat, not a carb food) because bacon is a food frequently associated with unhealthy food choices. I suppose they could have said beer and chips, but they probably didn’t want to make it seem like an anti-alcohol message. The busy mom one, maybe a bit better.
Every disease is painted with too broad a brush in the public mind. The problem with diabetes is that we are divided among ourselves by this kind of classification woo, thus rendering ourselves impotent PR-wise and short circuiting any possibility of counteracting the misconceptions.
Reiterating what I’ve said many times: until the diabetes community learns to speak with a single voice, we will never achieve the respect, understanding, or political effectiveness that cancer, heart disease, and numerous others have.
I agree, but that is at the heart of this message. The Diabetes Prevention Program teaches that following a low fat diet you can “prevent” diabetes. I find that concept absurd. At times I feel like there is a conspiracy to actually deceive the public about the role of carbs in diabetes.
I strongly believe there is, and I think it goes far beyond diabetes. The agricultural lobby is very powerful… Why do you think they put grains and carbs as the foundation of the “food pyramid” when we all know that’s crap? Do you have any kids in school? I’d encourage you to take a look at the garbage they’re feeding them in school lunches that they’ve assured us meet “nutritional guidelines” (guidelines basically written by the multibillon dollar agricultural industry)
Wow! Shocking responses. Yes pre-diabetes is a real stage of diabetes. This where there are still insulin producing beta-cells that are becoming stressed. The Diabetes Prevention Program showed a 58% reduction in the development of type 2 diabetes with a lifestyle treatment and taking Metformin reduced it by 31%. Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) | NIDDK
Lifestyle is increased exercise to 150 minutes a week and weight reduction of 5-7%. the exercise and weight loss lowers insulin resistance and a change in diet would reduce the insulin demands. Thus the prevention of type 2 diabetes.
As for the ads - I’m not a fan. I’m a former ad guy (pro photographer turned MPH, CDE) and I think the messaging is terrible. I’m happy some form of the message is getting out, but I hoped it would be better.
Exactly. Pre-diabetes is diabetes; it isn’t something else.
“If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?”
“Five.”
“No—four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”
–Abraham Lincoln
Again, exactly. “Reduce”—not “eliminate”.
And as for insulin resistance . . . not all cases of T2 are characterized by pronounced insulin resistance. Some have more to do with crippled or dwindling beta cells. As with most things diabetic, no single rule of thumb covers all cases.
I forgot to mention that I’m also wearing a Dexcom G5 for a week which is showing my after meal blood sugar spikes up to the 170 range. After an intense exercise session on Sunday though I lowered my insulin resistance and had no after meal spikes on Monday. So I prevented signs of diabetes on Monday. No exercise on Monday meant my after meal blood sugar increased on Tuesday.
I’m also taking Metformin to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. The DPP trial had a lifestyle and a Metformin arm. I’m using a combined approach that wasn’t used in the trial to use a more aggressive treatment method.
I consider a delay of two year prevention. I don’t get into the semantics battle of whether a two year delay is prevention or elimination. I’ll let others argue that point.
@Mark_Harmel…fantastic thread, Everybody! …But Mark, you really shouldn’t be surprised…
I was told I was “pre-diabetic” in late 2006 and told to follow the current medically sanctioned fad diet—the DASH diet—disaster. Within a very short period the scale tipped—of course. That’s a terrible diet for a diabetic. So Eff the term pre-diabetic. Once a diabetic always a diabetic. Somebody needs to tell at least a little truth in a very public way…
My dad came home post WWII from years in the Navy—from Lend-Lease in the North Atlantic to Midway in the Pacific—and returned to a job in the ad industry–with regional accounts including 3M tape division and buick. The ad industry kept a roof over our heads when I was growing up. But in the 1950s, many things were different. Many laws and regulations were different…
Dad’s motto, adapted from a dear friend in the Foreign Service was: “Never tell a lie. Never tell the whole truth. Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.”…
Ads now, like some of our worst politicians, really have no qualms about lying. In the world of a diabetic life, these lies or “not-quite-true” ads, seductive as they might be, are actually life-threatening…
One reason why I am planning a mass response to Oprah’s “I love bread” ads for weight watchers. I just don’t quite know how to do it yet…
Sorry this has gotten too “ranty”…Blessings all…Onward…
On a recent Sunday, I ate very low carb, went to the gym for a mixed weights/cardio workout - and, as I have a soreness in one shoulder, the emphasis was on the cardio, then went to a movie. Approximately 4.5 hours after my workout and almost 6 hours after my last meal (other than 15-20g carbs to stop my BG from dropping after the cardio workout), I took a bolus for a restaurant meal. While I was sitting in a restaurant getting ready to order dinner, I noticed that my BG was SKYROCKETING (for me), heading toward 300. Apparently my insulin pump site had failed some time earlier. I corrected with an injection and eventually all was well. Note, the next day my BG was quite volatile, despite relatively low-carb food choices…
Good diet + exercise made exactly zero noticeable difference. (I won’t go back and discuss my pre-Dx good lifestyle choices, exercise and weight loss that also missed on the “prevention” scale…)
I have to say, I have a rather dismal view of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). I think it was ill-conceived to begin with and used a totally wacked approach. The DPP defined an end point that measure how many people with pre-diabetes (which is just diabetes) progressed to full blown diabetes (which is worse diabetes). It measured how many people with diabetes “got worse.” So if you didn’t get worse you “prevented” diabetes. How stupid is that? And the lifestyle treatment? Eat a high carb, low fat calorie restricted diet. I won’t say anything more than that.
So even though the DPP was messed up in design, how well did it work? The recently published follow up (after 15 years) study called the DPPOS found that
At year 15, the cumulative incidences of diabetes were 55% in the lifestyle group, 56% in the metformin group, and 62% in the placebo group.
So let’s make two observations. First, the majority of participants still progressed to diabetes. THEY DIDN"T PREVENT DIABETES! Second, the high carb low fat diet with exercise approach was USELESS! It was no better than just taking a metformin pill. And those patients that did the DPP, on 7% of those saw any benefit at all. Only one in 14 people would see any benefit in delaying their progression of diabetes.
Concluding that the DPP “proved” that diabetes is caused by poor lifestyle is just WRONG! How can one possibly conclude that?
And finally, the bone headed idea that a low fat diet would be “heart healthy” was also found to be a failure.
So I have to ask the question. What good is a public service message to inform people about pre-diabetes when we LIE TO THEM and then tell them they can prevent their diabetes. I have no issue with educating the public about diabetes but I object to lying because I believe it leads to harm (potentially serious harm).
I am still reeling from reading this. I watch almost zero regular television so I must have missed it. Are you telling me that she is seriously telling people to eat lots of bread as part of a weight-loss program?!?
she’s invested in Weight Watchers and I haven’t seen it, but this morning I heard a TV ad she did where she talks about recently losing weight, “and I ate bread every day” (she didn’t say how much bread, or what kind)
I do not think the commercials are too good, many would probably be offended by them, but the ADA is correct in the fact that you can reverse your prediabetes. Michael Mosley, a science journalist trained as a doctor and a PPE graduate from Oxford in Britain, did the documentary Eat,fast, and live longer, and he got his sugars normal again,after losing about 20 pounds through a fasting regimen he dubbed 5:2, he ate normally five days, then 600 calories on his 2 fasting days.
In the program he visits a researcher which is concentrated on fasting, and he is persuaded to fast for 4 days. Durings those fasting days he loses 1.5 lbs and his sugars return from prediabetic to normal, so yeah, prediabetes can definitely be reversed by weightloss.
Here is the documentary
If you go to 31:30 in the video and stop the image, you will see his test results in the hand of the professor.
So he went back to his diet before being diagnose as pre-diabetic and didn’t return to diabetes? That is amazing!
I’d like to point out there is a huge difference in medicine in reversal (which is a return to a non-disease state) and control. Nobody disagrees that you can control diabetes with diet and fasting. But that doesn’t make it reversal.
If you are diagnosed as a diabetic, lose some weight, and are able to eat loads of carbohydrates,getting postprandials readings of glucose like a non-diabetic, you are cured in my opinion. And it seems like Michael Mosley is able to do that, then he is cured in my opinion.
There are other example of people managing to do this as well, Here is a lecture by Professor Roy Taylor talking about the newcastle diet
. Some guy from Hawai, found the research on the internet, embarked on it and lost a lot of weight, this is in 2011 mind you. Roy Taylor and him keep in touch on email, and just look from 31:20 in the video lecture I sent you. He shows a picture of his bloodsugars readings after eating a blueberry muffin, 75, and they were from just an hour after eating it! the exact moment the bloodsugar reading is shown, is 33;36. Those are the numbers of a non-diabetic person, so yeah, in my mind that is a cure.
