Virtually Better Diabetes Care?

Nonpharmacologic interventions focused on lifestyle modifications, including diet and exercise, remain a major component of therapy. Individualized nutrition therapy has been shown to be effective for improvement of the metabolic profile and weight loss. However, most studies of popular diets are usually of short duration and have high attrition rates (15-50% within 1 year) (2). Adherence to any prescribed diet is a real challenge, especially when we are surrounded by easily accessible, processed food of high caloric and low nutritional value. It is therefore not surprising that lifestyle modification often fails, and as health care providers (HCPs), we find ourselves compelled to add more and more pharmacotherapies and often recommend metabolic surgery to achieve therapeutic goals. Indeed, despite significant advances in pharmacotherapy, there has been no significant change in the percentage of people who achieve therapeutic goals (3).