Should HSI Start Rating Appliances?
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo.
That’s the theme music from “The Twilight Zone,” for those of you following along at home. And I swear it’s what I heard yesterday when I thumbed through the October issue of Consumer Reports.
You may remember my rant against Consumer Reports last month. The magazine, which specializes in rating appliances, cars, and household products, devoted several pages to the pros and cons (but mostly the pros) of drinking milk. Besides the fact that the article was incredibly slanted to the pro-milk camp, I thought it was outrageously inappropriate for a magazine like Consumer Reports to comment on the issue at all.
Well, they’ve done it again.
This time, the topic is diabetes. And although the article is positioned as an evaluation of 11 of the best-selling home blood-glucose meters, that information is buried in a box on the last page. No, the real gist of the story is to “detail the latest, most effective strategies for managing diabetes beyond glucose testing.” The piece goes on to push new classes of oral prescription drugs, while minimizing the role of nutrition and exercise.
What is going on here? Since when is Consumer Reports a source of health information? And even more importantly, where are they getting their information? Their recommendations certainly fly in the face of everything we know about Type II diabetes.
Take, for instance, the study that just appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. It showed that even people at high risk for Type II diabetes could virtually eliminate their risk by changing their eating habits, exercising, and losing weight. That study followed 522 people for four years. All of the participants were in the classic risk group: 40-65 years old, overweight (BMIs of 25 or higher), and already exhibiting glucose intolerance, a precursor to Type II diabetes. Half of them were assigned to a control group, and told to go about their normal habits. The other half attended sessions on nutrition and exercise, and were asked to work toward five goals: reducing weight by five percent or more, reducing total fat intake to less than 30 percent of total energy, reducing saturated fat intake to less than 10 percent of total energy consumed, increase fiber intake to at least 15 grams per 1,000 calories, and exercise 30 minutes a day or more.
Here’s the amazing result: not one of the participants who achieved at least four of the five goals developed diabetes – not even after four years! Even those who were only able to reach some of the goals cut their incidence rate by 58 percent over the control group.
This isn’t the only study that shows diet and lifestyle can successfully treat Type II diabetes. Yet the Consumer Reports story made no mention of these findings. In fact, the story reported, “People with diabetes no longer need to follow a specialized diet plan.”
Here’s another nice spin from the article: “Lifestyle changes can control the glucose level in some cases. But most [Type II diabetes] patients also need oral drugs; many will eventually need insulin shots, too.” Here’s another one: “Most people with Type II diabetes need medication to control their glucose level. Most diabetes patients should probably be taking more than one medication.” How thoughtful of the editor to also include a chart listing four new types of oral drugs that “attack Type II diabetes from different angles.” The more I read, the more it seemed like a press release from a pharmaceutical company.
The bizarreness of it all heightened as I read the last page, where they finally get around to talking about the blood-glucose meters diabetics use. Like a kid looking at a holiday catalog of new toys, they described the bells and whistles on the various meters, and new gadgets that may eliminate the need for diabetics to routinely stick themselves with needles to monitor glucose levels.
I can understand their excitement. Authorities tell us that some 10 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, and another five million diabetics may be undiagnosed. In the next 25 years, they expect those numbers to double. That’s a whole lot of potential consumers for a whole new world of gadgets and drugs.
But nowhere along the way does the author stop and ask “Why?” Why are more and more people being diagnosed with Type II diabetes every year? Why is a disease that used to be associated with the elderly now being seen in adolescents and even children?
Truthfully, I don’t want Consumer Reports asking those questions. But someone should. Conventional authorities have scratched the surface and offered some theories – among them our nation’s increasing rate of obesity, our high intake of refined carbohydrates, and our overall sedentary lifestyle. But we need to know more, and the messages need to be communicated more effectively to the general public. And it certainly shouldn’t come from publications like Consumer Reports, in a thinly veiled attempt to promote new band-aid drugs and devices.
At HSI, we’ve been devoted to bringing you breakthrough health information for over five years. And along the way, we’ve told you about several natural approaches to help control your blood glucose levels. In the March 2001 issue, we told you about Normalose, the herbal tea extract that can lower blood sugar levels by 32 percent in just three weeks. The May 2000 issue covered UltraGlycemX, a nutrient-rich beverage that helps improve insulin-response and serum glucose levels. We’ll continue to track new discoveries about Type II diabetes, and bring you real information you can use.
That’s as it should be – because that’s why we come to work each day. It’s our whole reason for publishing. And we intend to stick to that. Consumer Reports may have revised their mission statement, but don’t worry – you won’t see us rating refrigerators any time soon.
