More for the Diabetes Diary

In 2011 an historic event took place between February and July.  Hundreds of people joined forces to walk from the west coast to Washington DC to raise awareness about diabetes.  This is the Longest Walk 3: Reversing Diabetes.


Since this event we have published our commemorative volume, The Diabetes Diary.  This is a publication that includes daily entries about natural ways to prevent and reverse diabetes and to improve your health. 

The Diabetes Diary - Now Available to purchase. Valuable natural health 100+ page reference resource for people with diabetes. 

Now I read comments from a doctor that I believe belongs in this publication.

from Dr. Stefan Ripich

In his view, people with diabetes are mostly influenced by their doctors. And most doctors don't teach their patients these fairly obvious lifestyle changes.

There are five reasons for this that he cites:

REASON #1: There’s no money in it for them.Health insurance providers don’t reimburse doctors for "patient education" about diet and lifestyle. So doctors have no financial incentive to learn what really works because prescribing drugs pays better and involves less work.
REASON #2: Most MDs don’t have time.Educating and motivating diabetes patients takes longer than the average 8 to 12 minutes per visit that doctors spend with a patient. The medical system just isn’t set up for this.
REASON #3: Doctors aren’t sure what really works.Some think you must lose weight. Or give up carbs. Or become a vegetarian. In reality, most physicians don’t have a clue about lifestyle modifications. And since there’s no financial incentive to become better educated (see REASON #1), they remain in the dark.
REASON #4: Physicians are ultra-conservative.They tend to play it safe ... go by the book ... are slow to change. They rarely deviate from "official treatment guidelines" because they’re afraid of losing their license or getting sued. That’s why modern medicine progresses so slowly.
REASON #5: Doctors are massively influenced by drug salesmen.Drug companies spend $16 billion annually to directly influence doctors. (That’s $10,000 for every single physician in the US!) Most often, these salespeople are the physician’s main source of new diabetes information.

From Stefan's perspective, this is tragic because our best weapons against Diabetes are not being used.
From our many conversations with leaders of the US Healthcare system Stefan's view is widely shared.
On top of this lack of leadership by the majority of doctors, Stefan views the majority of books out there on controlling diabetes to have some major flaws in them.
The biggest one being that they are simply not doable or realistic.