DRWF Events: All the nutrients you need from a varied balanced diet
Following the recent United Through Diabetes educational event we are sharing a series of interviews from the day with leading healthcare professionals and people working in diabetes.
We hope everyone who attended the recent United Through Diabetes event had a great day with us and went home with the tools, knowledge, practical skills, and confidence to enhance your diabetes self-management and overall health and wellbeing.
The event Digital Hub provides an opportunity to recap on content from the day, plus access even more content to help you manage your diabetes – for both attendees and those who were not able to attend but would like to find out more.
DRWF interviews from United Through Diabetes: We sit down with Claire Brewster, Specialist Diabetes Dietitian at Warwick Hospital and Georgia Homer, Diabetes Dietitian North Warwickshire, two experts in diet and nutrition for people living with diabetes.
Claire and Georgia share some tips on how to balance a healthy diet with good self-management of diabetes.
Diet and lifestyle
Georgia: “We see people with all different types of diabetes, and we discuss with them how their diet and lifestyle can be modified to help manage their condition as best as possible. Depending on the person, we might be looking at kind of how many carbs they are eating and matching that to their medications. It depends on the person.”
Myths and misinformation
Claire: “There is a lot of myths and, and misinformation and often patients come to us very confused and want some clarity as to what they can eat. We have evidence-based guidance and recommendations. Essentially, we are promoting healthy eating, ensuring everyone is having a nutritional balance. We focus on carbohydrates as a main food group, while encouraging regular meals and sensible amounts of carbohydrates, including a lot about portion control. We look at the GI (glycaemic index) of food. How quickly carbohydrates are broken down and therefore encouraging lower GI starchy carbohydrate options. In addition to looking at carbohydrates in our diet, we also focus on fats, and things like fruit and vegetables, fibre, salt and alcohol. All kinds of important nutrients. We encourage our patients to set their own goals. It is very practical advice really.”
Carbohydrates
Georgia: “Just because somebody has diabetes does not change the amount of carbohydrates that are still recommended (for example in the Eatwell Guide). It is just guiding people to get that healthy balance of foods proportionately across a day or two, and then at each meal, we say around a quarter of the plate should be starchy carbohydrates and, where possible, perhaps choose more wholegrain high fibre options, then fill up the rest of the plate with a good source of protein, vegetables and salads as well, to get that balance at each meal.”
Fruit
Claire: “We are all aware that fruit is very good for us. It has got lots of vitamins and minerals which we all need. We need to be aware that fruit does contain fructose which will have an effect on blood glucose levels. Just being aware particularly of portion sizes and recommendations and to space out fruit intake through the day and look at eating fruit rather than having fruit juice because of the breakdown, that the whole fruit would contain the fibre which slows down the absorption of that carbohydrate.
“[With smoothies] perhaps add more vegetables into the smoothies rather than lots of fruit. Coming back to ideally one piece of fruit at a time. Preferably eating the fruit rather than have it in a juice form.”
Georgia: “It comes down to portion size as well. A glass of orange juice, for example, might have three or four oranges juiced to make that one glass. Whereas most people would not have three or four oranges at one time. As an increased portion of natural sugar, as well as the removal of the fibre as well, means that we see a much greater impact on blood glucose levels.”
Supplements
Claire: “We would not routinely advise nutritional supplements. We try and promote a healthy, balanced diet to get all the nutrients from the foods. However, during colder months, from October to March, we would recommend a vitamin D supplementation. That can be bought over the counter, because of the lack of sunlight for those living in England during winter.”
Georgia: “Generally we would much rather focus on getting our range of vitamins and minerals from a healthy balanced diet. Having a variety of different fruits and vegetables should mean that we are hopefully meeting those requirements. It is best to get it from food, if at all possible.”
“A varied balanced diet will provide us with all the nutrients we need.”
Thank you for listening to this Living With Diabetes special podcast report from United Through Diabetes 2024, presented by Claire Levy and brought to you by DRWF.
Visit the DRWF United Through Diabetes Digital Hub for more information and resources from the day
For news on all upcoming DRWF events please visit the event page
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