Nutrition therapy for type 2 diabetes: confirmed efficacy on individualized management

Feng-Xian Wei,1,2 Xue-Ping Qi1 1Lanzhou University Second Clinical Medical College, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730030, China; 2Department of General Surgery, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou University Second Clinical Medical College, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730030, ChinaWe read with great interest the article titled “Success of nutrition-therapy interventions in persons with type 2 diabetes: challenges and future directions” by Franz and Macleod,1 recently published in your journal Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy. We would like to comment on the article by explaining the key recommendations reported by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Nutrition Practice Guideline for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes in Adults.2,3 Compared with their valuable review in 2014,4 Franz and Macleod have summarized the intervention recommendations for nutrition therapy in detail in this article, including energy intake, macronutrient composition, carbohydrate management strategies, fiber intake, glycemic index and glycemic load, nutritive sweeteners and nonnutritive sweeteners, protein intake and protein intake for diabetic kidney disease, cardioprotective eating patterns, vitamin, mineral, and/or herbal supplementation, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and glucose monitoring. It is clear that the authors have done a lot of work to make diabetes management and self-management easier for professionals and patients, respectively, and they also provide a practical alternative for use of insulin and glucose-lowering medications and surgery in clinic. A crucial question is how nutrition therapy can be effectively implemented in the individual patient. The authors provide a promising solution involving “eHealth” and “e-patient”. It will be interesting as well as innovative to apply modern digital health technology to solve this problem in the future.View the original paper by Franz and MacLeod and colleagues