The following is a reprint from the blog "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb":

The Diabetes Food Pyramid pays no attention to low-carb solution

The numbers are staggering -- 73 million Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic and the trend is expected to get worse and worse in the coming years. You've got people like NBC's "The Biggest Loser" trainer Bob Harper out there urging diabetics to "step it up" to get serious about getting their blood sugar controlled.

In the meantime, several prominent new studies out of Duke University and from Sweden have been released in the past week concluding that a low-carb diet is the most beneficial nutritional approach for treating people who suffer from Type 2 diabetes.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came across something called the Diabetes Food Pyramid. Just like the government-recommended MyPyramid, this one is allegedly how diabetics should be eating in order to help control their disease.

But a closer look at this pyramid reveals the horrifying picture of carbs, carbs, and more carbs! The ADA is pushing diabetics to eat more servings of potatoes (CARBS!), breads (CARBS!), cereals (CARBS!), beans (CARBS!), and starchy veggies (CARBS!) than anything else. Sure, sweets that contain sugar are naturally discouraged, but what about the process that the body goes through converting those carbohydrates that are "recommended" into sugar for the body that can cause blood sugar to go haywire?!

Then, on the next level up on the Diabetes Food Pyramid, you've got such carb-loaded sugary foods like bananas, grapes and apples. While it could be argued these are "healthy" for you because they have natural sugars in them, sugar is still sugar and will cause problems for diabetics.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) should stop claiming to be an advocate for diabetics until they can start making wise recommendations for people with Type 2 diabetes to follow. No wonder Dr. Mary Vernon says the food pyramid is more about protecting the agricultural industry and not about public health. When are the ADA and other diabetes advocates going to begin taking the health of these people seriously enough to provide them with the information they really need to control their disease? I'm waiting...

This is precisely why diabetes can't and won't be cured anytime in the near future.