Counting Carbohydrates: Achieving Healthy Glucose Levels While Still Eating Foods You Love

Hunt Valley, MD (November 14, 2011)—Milner-Fenwick, a multi-media publisher that specializes in video and web-based products for the healthcare community, has launched a 3-part series on carbohydrate counting. It is designed to give patients the information—and inspiration—they need to better manage their care. Carbohydrate counting can be beneficial to people who are taking insulin, oral medications, or no medication at all.

The new series, which has received the American Association of Diabetes Educators Favorably Reviewed designation, includes:

• "Everyone Can Carbohydrate Count"
• "Carbohydrate Counting: Skills into Practice"
• "Advanced Carbohydrate Counting: Insulin to Carbohydrate Ratios"

"Taking the time to understand the carbohydrate values of foods and serving sizes is one of the biggest challenges diabetes patients face," says Linda Zeitzoff, RN, CRNP, CDE who served as a consultant on the project.

This series is designed to help diabetes patients learn how to keep their blood glucose in a healthy range so they can avoid the long-term complications of diabetes—complications such as kidney disease, blindness, and amputations. Major studies confirm that tight glycemic control can prevent these complications.

Although controlling blood glucose is the primary goal of the video series, it is also designed to help free people from the notion that their food choices must be narrow and dull. Of the three basic nutrients—proteins, fats, and carbohydrates—carbohydrates have the greatest affect on blood glucose.

Zeitzoff notes, "Most patients get a bit overwhelmed when first diagnosed and really jump to the conclusion that they need to immediately say good-bye to anything sweet or tasty."

Instead, with education and counseling, patients can learn how to count their carbohydrates and use the counting as a tool, along with medications and exercise, to better manage their blood glucose levels. This frees people from restrictive diets and opens up a wide variety of choices.

The videos give practical tips for patients to become familiar with portion sizes, using common household items to approximate serving sizes. With the help of technology in the videos, they can see a food portion morph into mundane objects like a light bulb or a person’s fist.

Of the three videos, the first two are geared toward people with type 2 diabetes. These are for people "who want greater control of their blood glucose, and carb counting can give them that extra tool they need," says series producer Carrie Beaudoin.

People with type 1 diabetes and those with type 2 diabetes and taking insulin are the target audience for the third video, Advanced Carbohydrate Counting: Insulin to Carbohydrate Ratios. It helps viewers understand the relationship between insulin and glucose levels by using different scenarios as the level of difficulty increases. The program is broken down into segments that patients can watch, master, and then move on from.

Along with the patients themselves, diabetes educators play an important role in the videos. They help patients set up meal plans and show them how to count carbohydrates. In the advanced level program, the educators help to adjust insulin levels and ensure that the daily routine is working for the individual.

The main objective, says Beaudoin, "is to present a carb counting routine that patients can use at each meal and snack in a simple way. At the same time, the meal plans are designed to be flexible and adapt to individual patient lifestyles."

This series is part of a broader Milner-Fenwick series of over 35 diabetes videos Favorably Reviewed by the AADE and designed as teaching tools for diabetes and other health educators.

About Milner-Fenwick
Milner-Fenwick has been producing patient education videos for more than 30 years; their productions feature real-life patients, and easy-to-understand graphics and animation. The firm has earned a reputation for excellence and service within the medical community. It has been honored with numerous awards from the National Health Information Awards and the International Health and Medical Media Festival.

Milner-Fenwick's mission is to inform and guide patients toward better health through multi-media education. The Milner-Fenwick library contains more than 600 health video programs—from fifteen-minute programs designed for in-facility viewing to two-minute programs designed for web and mobile delivery to multi-hour DVDs for patient home reference. The Milner-Fenwick library is used extensively by hospitals, physicians' offices, corporate wellness departments, health insurance and disease management companies, and public health agencies. Milner-Fenwick videos are not advertiser-supported which ensures unbiased content and products.
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