Please stop telling patients with Type 2 Diabetes to “Just eat less sweets and carbs”

I have permission to share the story of a patient I advocate for. She is fat and has Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Her latest A1C test was 7.1%. This is .1% over her goal and up from her previous test. Her doctor told her that she didn’t need to adjust meds but should “do her best to eat less sweets and carbohydrates.”

This is incredibly common advice (perhaps especially with fat patients for whom many healthcare practitioners seem to always be trying to find a reason to prescribe food restriction, but I hear it from thin patients as well.) Unfortunately, it is also problematic advice on a number of levels.