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EventsHow low carb can save tons of money by reducing the need for medications
A low-carb diet can drastically reduce the need for blood-sugar lowering medications for people with diabetes. Here’s an amazing example.
There is a surprisingly positive side effect for clinics adopting low-carb nutrition counselling for improving the patients’ type 2 diabetes. The need for prescribing medications drop, consequently reducing costs.
Creds to Dr. Unwin for sharing the cost comparison of clinics above. He’s a low-carb physician who has also saved money for his own clinic using this strategy.
Do you want to know more about this strategy, for improving people’s health and saving money at the same time? Watch the video below.
So making any comparison across difference practices should be done with caution. Please read the notes https://openprescribing.net/caution/
Your essentially comparing this practice to others with more diabetic patients.
The figures above are presented as per £/1,000 patients for this drug category, so number of patients in the practice ('list size' as Open Prescribing calls it) has already been normalised.I can see how extra patients in a small practice could skew indicators but surely this is smoothed out in larger practices when normalised for list size.
Other factors (diabetes prevalence, patients age, ethnicity, obesity, etc etc) have not been adjusted for and there are many known (and indeed unknown factors) which will be reflected in the indicator.
You say that "It would be unusual for such a large practice to have a disproportionately low diabetes prevalence", but there is at least some evidence this has historically always been the case for this practice: https://www.gpcontract.co.uk/browse/K81022/16 (although currently this is negligible)
My point really is that there is a wider context to the performance of a particular practice which is needed to interpret the indicators, and it is disingenuous to pick out a practice offering low carb interventions and then imply that the good performance is a product of the intervention.
Although just a correlation, I'd be interested in when Wokingham offered this intervention, because they have consistently been the best (or therabouts) for measure 6.1.2 in their CCG since Jan 2015. If the intervention started later, is this not at least some evidence of a background of historical good performance? https://openprescribing.net/analyse/#org=practice&orgIds=K81022&...
There is also a rather interesting anomaly in that while there are very good against cost indicators, they are not so good against number of items prescribed per 1,000 patients. So they are using more items but costs are lower. Perhaps indicates more of a different type of drugs in this category (6.1.2) are being used which are simply less expensive?
Thanks to my GP and lchf I no longer binge eat, and I stop eating when I am full. I not even tempted by high carb foods any more. I have coped with setbacks and difficult emotional events much better than before (I have chronic depression). I had my operation three weeks ago. I am so grateful to Dr Bhardwaj for taking the time to talk to me and point me in the right direction.