This morning I was watching a feature on GMTV about diabetes, diet and supplements. They were talking about the progress of a diabetic lady who is currently on a Glycaemic Index (GI) diet under the advice of Patrick Holford, a well-known UK nutritionist.

I thought things were going very well, the lady featured talked about how easy the diet was, how she’s feeling much better and how, with the help of a consultant, has weaned herself of the medication.

Patrick then goes on further to talk about what foods have a low Glycaemic Load (low GL) and what supplements should be taken, including chromium and cinnamon.

So far, so good.

Then this other expert (sorry can’t remember what she does) starts to get really angry at Patrick accusing him that this low GL diet is nothing new, it’s simply common sense and that there’s no need for all these supplements because they can be obtained from your diet.

Wow, she really “got her knickers in a twist” over this. I wasn’t expecting that sort of behaviour on a morning TV show, especially since the diet appears to have worked. She accused Patrick of being irresponsible because people shouldn’t be coming off their medication simply because of a diet.

Luckily Patrick kept his cool and simply explained that there have been numerous tests to show that using chromium supplements have been shown to work and that the diabetic’s results speak for themselves.

Personally I think Patrick handled things very well. At no point did he suggest that anyone should dump their medication in favour of his diet.