A1C...BROUGHT TO YOU BY BIG PHARMA

Yes...A1C is an actual lab value, and it does give us some information about our patient's blood glucose control, but the strategic emphasis of A1C by big pharma and factions in alignment with big pharma, and the implied superior importance of this number, over an optimal, healthy weight, has created what can only be described as a Big Smokescreen.

Watch television ads for the latest pharmaceuticals produced for the management of type 2 diabetes, and you'll see men and women seemingly enjoying their best life, bowling, playing in the park, or enjoying the fair, all while the message focuses almost exclusively on such & such diabetes medication helping you lower your A1C...and then as a minor side note, stating that "it might even help you lose some weight!"

It's a subtle slant that goes unnoticed by millions of patients and thousands of doctors alike. But it's the overarching emphasis on A1C in these commercials, and the backseat given to the importance of achieving and maintaining an optimal, ideal personal weight, that creates a false veil and a big smokescreen around what truly moves the needle and improves type 2 diabetes.

And it's this "drugs first" narrative, in our national approach to the management of type 2 diabetes, which has insidiously worsened the health of millions and millions of patients, while doctors add drug after drug, and then ultimately insulin, in an attempt to lower this hyped-up number in their patients.

A1C is Not a disease. We as doctors need to stop treating it as if it were.