Sweden and diabetes again: Salty beer in Kiwiland

If you go to the homepage of the Lancet and search on Mann and Nye you will get this preview of their comment on the woeful state of diabetes management in Sweden. If you want to spend $31.50 (which I don't) you can obviously read the full text. Here's the preview text via the Lancet homepage, there's no abstract on PubMed:

"There will be much greater interest than is usually the case in the outcome of a review of the scientific evidence for dietary recommendations for patients with diabetes commissioned by the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden. This review is not yet finalised and thus not yet published. The appearance of fad diets offering near miraculous health outcomes invariably attracts hordes of adherents hoping for a magic bullet, the books describing them often becoming bestsellers. The ultra-low-carbohydrate Atkins diet was no exception, spawning specialist products, supermarkets, and restaurants worldwide"

If you want the basic flavour of the full text, while keeping your small change, you can go to Medical News Today's website. I've kept a copy of the text for when the link goes down but for now here is the biggest giggle in the article:

"A group of experts which is a branch of the Board was scheduled to publish a report on nutritional recommendations for people with diabetes. However two of the experts on the panel were withdrawn by the newly appointed Director-General. He considered that their links to the food industry via the Swedish Nutrition Foundation might represent a conflict of interest. The Foundation receives food industry funding. It also provides independent advice to the industry through expert scientists. The two scientists involved (Bengt Vessby and Nils-Georg Asp) are internationally respected. Their dismissal caused outrage in the rest of the Board and the scientific community."

I think the journalist is using the term "scientist" very loosely here.

Personally, if I were either Mann or Nye I'd be thinking what I might do to earn my living if I got the boot in NewZealand in the same way as did Vessby and Asp in Sweden. As always, lavatory attendant would be my preferred re training option for them.

Less crying in their beer would be a nice too. But then, if I was as wrong as they are, I'd be crying in my beer too!

Peter