 Dr. Kim Williams, immediate past president of the Merring College of Cardiology, started out in editorial on plant-based diets with the classic Schopenhauer quote, that all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as like duh, of course. In 2013, plant-based diets for diabetes were in the ridiculed stage in the official endocrinology practice guidelines placed in the FAD diets section. They acknowledged strictly plant-based diets have been shown to reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes and improve management of diabetes better than the American Diabetes Association recommendations, but then inexplicably go on to say that the evidence doesn't support the use of one type of diet over another with respect to diabetes or in general. The best approach for a healthy lifestyle is simply the amelioration of unhealthy choices, whatever the heck that means. But by 2015, the clinical practice guidelines from the same professional associations explicitly endorsed as their general recommendation for diabetic patients a plant-based diet. Time, they are a change. The American Diabetes Association itself is also now on board listing it as one of the dietary patterns acceptable for the management of the condition, but the Canadian Diabetes Association has really taken the lead. Type 2 diabetes is considered one of the fastest growing diseases in Canada, representing a serious public health concern, so they're not messing around, recommending plant-based diets for disease management because of their potential to improve body weight and blood sugar control as well as heart disease risk, in addition to reducing the need for diabetes medications. They use the Kaiser Permanente definition, a regimen that encourages whole plant-based foods and discourages meats, dairy, and eggs, as well as all refined and processed junk. They recommend diabetes education centers in Canada improve patients' perceptions of plant-based diets by developing educational materials and providing individualized counseling sessions to address what barriers people have to eating plant-based. The biggest barrier identified was ignorance. Nearly nine out of 10 patients interviewed had never even heard of using a plant-based diet to treat diabetes. Why is that? Maybe patient awareness of the benefits are being influenced by the perception of the diabetes educators and clinicians. See, most of the staff were aware, yet only about one in three were currently recommending it. Why not? One of the common reasons given was that they didn't think their patients would do it. So they didn't even bring it up. But this notion is contrary to the patient survey results they cite, in which most patients said they would be willing to at least give it a try. The researchers cite the PCRM Geico studies I did videos about, in which strictly plant-based diets were well accepted with an over 95% adherence rate, presumably because they just felt so much better increase energy, better digestion, better sleep, and satisfaction. A number of staff members also expressed second reason for not recommending this diet, not being clear about the support of scientific evidence, but has been shown to be more effective than an American Diabetes Association recommended diet at reducing the use of diabetes medication, long-term blood sugar control and cholesterol. It's therefore possible that the diabetes educators were simply behind the times. As there's a lag time and dissemination of new scientific findings from the literature to the clinician and finally to the patient. That's one of the reasons I started nutritionfacts.org to speed up the process. As Dr. Williams put it, the evidence for the benefits of plant-based nutrition continues to mount. This now includes lower rates of stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart attacks, and cardiac death, as well as many non-cardiac issues that affect our patients in cardiology, ranging from cancer to a variety of inflammatory conditions. The science we got, the bigger challenge, is overcoming the inertia of culture and habit and widespread marketing of unhealthy foods. He concludes, reading the existing scientific literature and evaluating the impact of plant-based nutrition clearly represents the single, most important yet underutilized opportunity to reverse the pending obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of disease and death.