How A 'Student Project' Grew Into An NHS-Approved Tool For Diabetes
Optimum Nutrition|Winter 2018/19

In 2018, the NHS gave the green light for GPs to prescribe the GroHealth low-carb programme for type 2 diabetes. Louise Wates spoke to Arjun Panesar, one of the brains behind its creation.

Louise Wates
How A 'Student Project' Grew Into An NHS-Approved Tool For Diabetes
Although basing our diet on starchy carbs is still accepted official wisdom, the recent approval of a low-carb programme for patients with type 2 diabetes and prediabetes has demonstrated a tremendous shift in the starchy carb dogma of recent decades. Now, low-carb has officially been given the blessing of the NHS — albeit in specific medical circumstances. But it isn’t just the low-carb approach that makes this interesting news; it is the fact that using data from a large, online community has helped to inform and develop a digital programme that has the potential to help save healthcare costs around the world.

Also available to anyone without a prescription, the GroHealth low-carb programme, which comes under the umbrella of Diabetes Digital Media, can be accessed through the associated website diabetes.co.uk. There is a one-off charge of £29.99 for the full experience, but a wide range of resources can be accessed for free. Currently, according to the website, more than 377,000 people have signed up.

Created in part using data from diabetes.co.uk, which has grown to become Europe’s largest online diabetes community, and under the guidance of GP and low-carb champion Dr David Unwin, the programme is an illustration of how artificial intelligence is paving the way towards tailor-made complementary health solutions. Yet its beginnings were humble, starting as “a bit of a student hobby” for “self-confessed data geek” Arjun Panesar.

A family problem

It may now have members from as far afield as India, Australia, and Nepal, but diabetes.co.uk was initially created only because Panesar wanted to help his grandfather.

This story is from the Winter 2018/19 edition of Optimum Nutrition.

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This story is from the Winter 2018/19 edition of Optimum Nutrition.

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