Paula Deen Endorses Victoza for Diabetics and Suggests the Wrong Diet

Saturday, January 21st, 2012 at 1:34 am

Paula Deen Picked a Drug for Diabetics, but She Also Decided on Low Fat Dieting – What is She Thinking!

With all the hoopla online and on national TV about Paula Deen’s diagnosis as a Type 2 Diabetic (see yesterday’s post on Paula Deen and Anthony Bourdain) I found myself puzzled over the “example” she is setting for the public in terms of medication and diet. She has picked Victoza by Novo Nordisk as the Diabetes medication she now endorses. She waited 3 years to announce her diagnosis, which has caused some to criticize her for promoting high carb and high fat recipes during that time – food choices which are bad for most of us, especially diabetics. In her defense, she says she waited in order to study Type 2 Diabetes so she could make an informed decision on her own health and provide a good example for her fans. When I looked deeper into exactly what she is doing for her own treatment I became concerned.

Paula Deen has formally endorsed Novo Nordisk and its Diabetes medication, Victoza. Along with her sons, Bobby and Jamie, she is the key spokesman on their joint venture site: Diabetes in a New Light, which provides information on Diabetes, Victoza, and suggested Diabetes friendly recipes.

According to a Novo Nordisk representative, the company approached her on the possibility of acting in a promotional role to raise public awareness of Diabetes and Diabetes therapy before they knew she was diabetic. She and her sons subsequently agreed to work for Novo Nordisk and she is apparently now using their medication, Victoza, with daily injections. She was approached by Nova Nordisk it appears because they needed someone to help with food issues. According to Havilah Clarke, senior manager, product communications at Novo Nordisk (as reported by The Princeton Packet):

”We approached Paula. We were looking to create a diabetes awareness education campaign that created a positive outlook on diabetes management… Based on what we’re hearing from some primary research we were doing, people living with diabetes thought that food was one of the most difficult challenges to address in their social lives. They thought they had to deprive themselves.”

This last part of the quote is one of the BIG DRUG concepts used to push drugs for Diabetics – the idea that diabetics should be able to eat like everyone else. This is also touted by the American Diabetes Association, which is associated with a number of Diabetes drug companies. Type 2 Diabetes is an intolerance of carbohydrates. Remove a substantial amount of carbs from the diet and Type 2 Diabetes symptoms are, in general, reduced or disappear altogether. Of course, making a lifestyle change like going on a low carb diet is, to many people, a daunting challenge, so drugs are necessary to treat Diabetes for those who can’t or don’t want to “deprive themselves”. The problem with this BIG DRUG idea is that it downplays the effectiveness of lifestyle change (diet and exercise) and instead, encourages medication, which has its own set of problems. Dependence on medication can easily turn into a dilemma which may require patients to seek drug rehabilitation guidance.

In terms of the drug that Paula Deen has chosen after her 3 years of study, it is actually Liraglutide, a peptide called Incretin, marketed under the brand name Victoza. With a daily injection, it reduces blood sugar levels in the blood stream via two separate actions: 1) by increasing the amount of insulin that is secreted into the blood stream and, 2) by slowing down the digestion of carbohydrates so that blood sugar enters at a slower rate into the blood stream. The FDA approved this drug for human use, but because of adverse side effects discovered with animal studies, the FDA has limited its use until clinical trials can be used to quantify these side effects with humans. The FDA limitation can be found in the approved FDA labeling for the drug and, in part, it reads as follows:

“Not recommended as first-line therapy for patients inadequately controlled on diet and exercise.”

In other words, according to the FDA, Victoza should only be used by patients who are already adequately controlling their Diabetes symptoms with diet and exercise. This limitation may have been imposed so that this drug would be used only at low doses. In other words, the FDA expects that patients use diet and exercise to decrease their blood sugar levels substantially, and then just rely on the drug, at small doses, to achieve slightly more reduction in blood sugar levels. This would limit the exposure of the drug to patients until the clinical trials can be completed to make sure the drug doesn’t have significant adverse side effects.

Did Paula Deen control her Diabetes over the past couple of years with the new Diabetes friendly recipes she is promoting now – so that she can take Victoza according to the FDA guidelines for its use? Let’s hope the answer to that is Yes. I’m worried that the answer is No. The first recipe I looked at on her site was for a Lasagne entree that had 23 grams or carbohydrates per serving. A sidebar topic by her sons stated:

“Choosing extra-lean ground beef along with a whole-grain lasagna noodle, helps to reduce both fat and carbs. Also, whole-grain options generally offer higher protein and fiber.”

This doesn’t sound like a low carb diet! I’m concerned she hasn’t controlled her Diabetes with this diet. If she has, how long will she be able to stick with it, since it appears to be a low fat diet (which is difficult to follow).

Let’s hope that Paula Deen keeps an open mind and studies the low carb (high fat) diet. She can make a real difference in helping people if she switches to low carb or Paleo diet cooking! If she doesn’t then more of her Type 2 Diabetic followers will have to resort to medication – and she’ll sell more Victoza… I sincerely hope that she doesn’t want that!

This post is featured on the Modern Paleo Blog.

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