Janice had Type 2 diabetes. She was stuck in some unhealthy habits – drinking four cans of coca cola a day, eating three-person portions of pasta, binging on pringles – and she needed help to make a change. In January 2018 she was diagnosed with an Hba1c level of 89, indicating a severe lack of glycaemic control.

And make a change is what she did. It began when, soon after her diagnosis, her GP referred her onto Changing Health’s Transform programme for diabetes management. Transform combines a course of digital education on diabetes with personalised behaviour change support from a lifestyle coach, and aims to give users the psychological tools to sustain a positive health behaviours over the long term.

She got off to a flying start. Kirsten, her lifestyle coach, was impressed; Janice had already begun prepping her meals in advance, swapping carbs at lunch for a healthier alternative, and dancing each night to an exercise routine – and lost a kilo in a week as a result. While it’s important to start with small changes, Janice felt she could do more, so Kirsten worked with her to set a clear, achievable short-term goal for physical activity: three brisk, 10 minute walks per day on the way to work, at lunchtime and on the way home.

By March, Janice had accelerated her progress, decreasing her portion sizes, increasing her fluid intake, cutting out crisps, swapping white bread for wholemeal and potatoes for sweet potatoes.

“She wanted to know more about the carb and sugar content of fruits and vegetables,” Kirsten says. “So I gave her a document about GI of foods and a link to a website that could be useful too. I told her carrots are quite high in GI and sugar, but they’re still vegetables and better than other things you could be eating!”

“I was very honest with Kirsten,” says Janice. “She was equally honest back, and without being judging – she was supportive and positive. I wasn’t very active – partly because I was ill and partly because of the weather, and we spoke about my frustrations with that. We discussed mini exercises I could do during the day.”

May rolled around, and it was time for another visit to the GP. There was some excellent news: Janice had reduced her HbA1c to just 55 in four months. She was well on the way to reversing her condition for good.

“I kept making swaps – I like to go to concerts, so I swapped beer for sparkling water. I haven’t touched Coca Cola, no red meat, no processed foods – I’m eating lots of fish, veggies, grilled halloumi. My partner enjoys the new diet too. I’d led him astray to be honest, but he’s just brilliant – he supports me every day”

The last time Janice and Kirsten spoke, in July, things were looking even better. Janice had reduced her HbA1c to 42 – meaning she no longer had diabetes! She’d now lost a total 14.8kg on the programme, and dropped two dress sizes to boot.

“Janice has been amazing throughout her journey on the Changing Health programme,” Kirsten adds. “She recognises that the changes she’s made are long-term lifestyle changes, rather than a short-term fix. She deserves this fantastic news!”

Does Janice have any advice for others in her position? “Be honest. That’s the key, that’s the tough thing. When I’ve been low, I’ve rung up Kirsten and beat myself up, but she looks at the bigger picture. She’s brilliant. I’ll miss her.”

People with diabetes can’t always tell fact from fiction. And with the internet awash with conflicting sources of information on diet, exercise and glycaemic control, it’s easy to see why. In the space of just two weeks, the Daily Express alone published or republished 17 clickbait headlines on diabetes, often misleading, and designed to appeal to readers’ fears about their health.

Here are a couple of them:

• “Diabetes Type 2 diet: the easy drink you can make at home to lower your blood sugar[water]”, 31 August
• “Diabetes Type 2 symptoms: why you should never ignore this sign that ‘feels weird’ [itchy skin]”, 29 August
• “Diabetes Type 2 – the ‘amazing’ 7p breakfast to prevent high blood sugar [eggs]”, 27 August

Of course, that’s not to understate the public health crisis currently facing the nation – a recent estimate by Diabetes UK suggested a record 12.3 million people are now at elevated risk of developing Type 2. But we urgently need to stem this flow of misinformation.

Even the broadsheets can be prone to misrepresenting scientific evidence. The Guardian, for example, ran in August with the headline “No healthy level of alcohol consumption, says major study”. That referred to a major mata-analysis of 694 studies to work out how common drinking was, and a further 592 that assessed the health risks, accounting for a total 28 million people and published in The Lancet.

The researchers found that for each extra drink consumed in a day, the harm increased, and that the lowest level of harm was zero drinks – the basis of the Guardian’s headline. It isn’t, however, that simple.

The study showed that 918 in 100,000 people who consume one drink a day can expect to experience an alcohol-related health issue. Yet 914 of those people will experience such a health issue no matter what, meaning only four in 100,000 do so as a direct result of consuming one drink a day(1). The study also did not account for other factors that may have been the actual cause of harm – drinkers are more likely be poorer and to smoke, for example.

Again, this is not to understate the risks; it’s beyond doubt that drinking is detrimental to health. The point, however, is that misleading headlines create a widespread lack of understanding what constitutes an achievable, healthy lifestyle – with significant implications for public health.

Many people are unaware, for example, that consuming carbs, not fats, is what typically leads to weight gain. Another common misconception is that Type 2 diabetes is a sign of having eaten too many sweets, rather than too much bread and pasta.

Peer support groups for diabetes can be tenuous in reliability too. A 2011 study of health social networks, published in the Journal of the American Medical Infomatics Association, found that only 50% were aligned with clinical practice recommendations (n=10).

Users of Changing Health’s programme for diabetes management, which combines evidence-based education on diabetes with behaviour change support, consistently tell us they were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of conflicting viewpoints on diet they had found online. Their GPs typically only have the time to hand them a stack of leaflets, and while the NHS website goes some way to helping, there’s more that could be done.

We must counter this deluge of misinformation by providing more people with clear, evidence-based guidance and support. If we don’t, there’s only one likely outcome: incidences of diabetes will continue to rise and with them, the strain on health economies across the nation.

1: New York Times, 28 August: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/upshot/alcohol-health-risks-study-worry.html

In July 2017, Tina C, a Fire Prevention Officer from Northamptonshire, achieved something incredible. She had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes two years earlier and needed medications to keep her blood sugars in check day by day. She was feeling lost, was struggling to keep a check on her diet, and things were getting worse.

Then came the call from the BBC. A second series of the hit documentary How to Stay Young was on the cards, and Tina had been selected to participate. If she was up for it, she would embark on a strict, 12-week diet and exercise plan supervised by Changing Health’s Professor Mike Trenell, with the aim of reducing her “real body age”. She would undergo extensive testing at four, eight and twelve weeks to assess everything from her weight and blood glucose levels to quality of sleep and cognitive function.

Tina accepted. The diet took some serious willpower; calories were reduced to just 800 per day, with each meal logged in the Changing Health app alongside Tina’s daily physical activity levels for her lifestyle coach to feed back on. It was a dramatic shift from Tina’s normal habits, but she kept it up.

Success At Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

Fast-forward 12 challenging weeks, and there was big news. Watched by millions across the UK on BBC1, Professor Trenell gave Tina the results from her final round of tests. Had she walked in and there and then, Professor Trenell told her, he wouldn’t say she has diabetes. He’d say she haddiabetes.

She was gobsmacked. She had taken control of her health and transformed her life. And a year on, she’s kept it up. “It’s been a difficult year with some big challenges,” she says. “Sometimes your mind gets unfocussed, you end up comfort eating – in April I lost my way. It was the first time I’d felt like that, and it disappointed me.

“But then, 6-8 weeks ago, something reclicked; I’ve gone back to being strict with myself, logging my foods and exercise in the Changing Health app and re-reading the learning content. It’s really important to have the facts, because when you do you realise you’re in control. I reminded myself that my health is something I can change. It is possible.”

Reversing Type 2 Diabetes With Low Carb Diet

Perhaps the most drastic change in Tina’s lifestyle over the past year has been her meal choices. “I used to just load up on carbs, thinking they would fill me up – not realising that carbs actually turn to sugar in your blood! Now I’m eating a lot of vegan meals and plant-based foods… and sugar-free baking has changed my life! I use a lot a cacao in my cake recipes; it’s just a matter of getting your taste buds used to it.

“The recipes in the Changing Health app have been really useful too. All kinds of foods I didn’t even know about have become staples… Chia seeds, for one, have become a massive part of my life. I have to think of unhealthy foods as evil. I’ll allow myself a treat on very special occasions, for example I baked a normal cake for a 40th birthday, and I’m going to have a slice!

“I make sure that on 6 days a week I’m brilliant, so on the 7th day I can have a glass of wine or something a little naughty! My strategy is to picture my own long-term health. I keep a couple of pics on my phone of how I was before, just to remind myself.”

Beating Diabetes With A Little Help From The Hubby

There’s no doubt that Tina’s husband’s support has been invaluable too; together they’re quite the team. “He gave up six months of his life to lose weight with me and support me through completely changing my diet and starting a regular exercise routine and if he can do it, I can too. I was having a tough time in April, and without him, I would’ve self-destructed. But now I feel so much better. You just feel more positive when your diet is good and when I’m healthy I get through things. I feel really different in how organised I am – literally just ticking things off my to-do list all day!”

“We’ve got two businesses that I help out with; and we always look for different solutions to get the energy we need for a long day without eating sugar. Planning is very important. I’m back down to 1000 calories temporarily so this morning, for example, I had chia seeds and soya milk, for lunch it was chickpea falafels and a green salad, and this evening we’ll have chicken fajitas without the wraps.”

“Having the Changing Health app on hand is like having a little buddy in my pocket. When my husband isn’t there, it’s a constant reminder: what have I eaten this week? It’s engaging, nice to look at and the content is easy to understand.”

“Ultimately, the power’s in your hands to change your health. I still can’t get my head around how I made that difference and changed my life. It’s not expensive, it’s not a lot of work, it’s just you and your mindset. If somebody gave you that chance, if somebody told you could do it – why wouldn’t you?”

Watch Tina’s moving account of her experience reversing Type 2 diabetes