Letter from the Editor #737

There was an article in Diabetologia 2014 stating that, "Whey protein may represent a novel approach for enhancing glucose-lowering strategies in type 2 diabetes." I wonder why we need these studies as common sense says any time you add protein to a meal digestion will slow and glucose levels won’t climb as much. If you add this protein powder to a high fiber powder and drink before meals then you could even further maximize that effect. However, some of our patients can have a hard time swallowing the fiber as it thickens and if you check out this week’s Item #5 you will find out about a capsule for prediabetes that is made up of thousands of tiny hydrogel particles that expand in the stomach and mix with digested foods to help with reducing intake.

This may be a good alternative for some of our older patients as we seem to forget about quality of life issues when we are trying to meet 5 star quality ratings in older patients — read Item #1 to see what I am talking about. 

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Dave Joffe, Editor-in-chief