What We're Reading: Diabetes Type Confusion

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Jul 17, 2008

What We're Reading: Diabetes Type Confusion

Web Team

Diabetes bloggers are not pleased with a segment that aired on ABC’s Good Morning America last week. Apparently, the segment gave people tips for reducing their risk of diabetes, but failed to distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

The error is common but unfortunate. Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetes have many of the same symptoms and may require some of the same treatments, but their underlying disease processes are different. While there are some well-known ways, such as weight loss and exercise, that can reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes for some people, there is no known way to prevent Type 1 diabetes.

Bernard Farrell picked up on the story and blogs about it both at the Diabetes Technology Blog and at Diabetes Daily. And Allison Blass has a few choice words on her blog Lemonade Life. Both bloggers express concern that this story, and those like it, could add to a general perception that diabetes is one, monolithic condition.

Because of the complaints, ABC fixed the article that accompanied the segment so that it just refers to Type 2 diabetes. You can read the corrected article here. And ABC got the distinction right in this video from earlier in the year.

This blog post was written by Assistant Editor David Golann.

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