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What’s wrong with the dietary advice Diabetes UK dishes out to diabetics? from Dr. J Briffa

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Welcome back:
This week I am presenting a post, originally posted on March the 5th 2012, by Dr John Briffa – a UK physician who is right up there in terms of commonsense, proven & scientifically supported nutrition

If you’re reading this blog post on 5th March 2012, there’s a good chance you came to it as a result of listening to discussion on BBC Radio 4’s programme ‘You and Yours’ about the most appropriate diet for those suffering from diabetes. You can listen to the broadcast here (the item starts about 15 minutes into the show). The UK’s largest diabetes charity – Diabetes UK – advises diabetics to include starchy foods with every meal. I strongly object to this on the grounds that this approach is unscientific, counter-intuitive, and likely to worse blod sugar control and increase the risk of complications. I wrote this article ahead of time, because I know how challenging it can be to get all the most important facts out when time is short. This article is an attempt to get down what I believe to be the salient points, with some references to the science where relevant.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a condition characterised by raised levels of sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream. It comes in two main forms:

1. Type 1 diabetes: caused by a failure of the body (actually, the pancreas) to secrete insulin – the chief hormone in the body responsible for keeping blood sugar levels in check. It usually develops in childhood or early adulthood. The condition requires treatment with insulin.

2. Type 2 diabetes: here there is often a lot of insulin in the body, but the problem is the body has become somewhat unresponsive to the effects of this hormone (insulin resistance). Sometimes, type 2 diabetics can have difficulty secreting enough insulin as a result of what is sometimes termed ‘pancreatic exhaustion’. The condition generally develops in adulthood (though it’s increasingly being diagnosed in children). Treatment usually involves lifestyle modification (diet and exercise) and drugs. Some type 2 diabetics go on to require insulin. Type 2 diabetes makes up more than 90 per cent of all cases of diabetes.

What’s the problem with raised levels of sugar in the bloodstream?

When blood sugar levels are raised, there’s increased risk of glucose attaching to and damaging tissues. This can lead to complications such as eye disease and blindness, heart disease, kidney disease and poor circulation and nerve damage in the legs which may lead to amputation.

What does Diabetes UK recommend that diabetic eat?

You can read Diabetes UK’s advice for type 2 diabetics here. Here’s a core piece of advice:

At each meal include starchy carbohydrate foods
Examples include bread, pasta, chapatis, potatoes, yam, noodles, rice and cereals. The amount of carbohydrate you eat is important to control your blood glucose levels. Especially try to include those that are more slowly absorbed (have a lower glycaemic index) as these won’t affect your blood glucose levels as much. Better choices include: pasta, basmati or easy cook rice, grainy breads such as granary, pumpernickel and rye, new potatoes, sweet potato and yam, porridge oats, All-Bran and natural muesli. The high fibre varieties of starchy foods will also help to maintain the health of your digestive system and prevent problems such as constipation.

What’s the problem with this advice?

Starch is made up of chains of sugar (glucose) molecules. When we eat starch we digest it down into sugar and then absorb this sugar into the bloodstream from the gut. While it’s often said that ‘complex carbohydrates’ give a ‘slow, steady’ release of sugar into the bloodstream, this is generally not the case at all. We know this from research in which the tendency for foods to disrupt blood sugar levels has been measured to derive what’s known as its ‘glycaemic index’.

The GI is a quantification of the speed and extent to which a food releases sugar into the bloodstream. The higher a food’s GI, the more disruptive it is to blood sugar levels. In the GI scale, pure glucose is given a value of 100, and then other foods are compared to it.

Table sugar (that some people use on their cereal, add to tea or coffee and use in baking) is made of sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose. The GI of table sugar is about 65.

Just bear these things in mind when consider that boiled and mashed potato have GIs that averages about 55 and 70 respectively. Wholemeal bread has a GI that averages out at about 70. The GIs of white rice, egg noodles and porridge are about 60, 57 and 70 respectively. We can see from this that many of the foods Diabetes UK recommend for diabetics are about as disruptive for blood sugar as eating sugar itself.

You can read what Diabetes UK has to say about the GI here.

Here you will find that Diabetes UK gives us this table:

Diabetes UK does not define what constitutes ‘low-‘ ‘medium-‘ and ‘high-GI’. However, rather oddly, brown rice gets a ‘high’ rating, though its GI is about 45, while say Shredded Wheat is rated as ‘medium’ while its GI is 83.

Over in the ‘low-GI’ column we have Special K and Sultana Bran, yet both of these cereals have GIs of about 70 (Special K’s GI varies according to country but averages out at about 70). In fact, Diabetes UK gives special mention to these named foods in its breakfast recommendations.

However, including starchy (and sometimes sugary) foods such as these in the diet will likely worsen blood sugar control (compared to a diet lower or devoid of these foods), thereby increasing the need for medication and enhancing risk of complications.

What might explain this misinformation and bad advice?

See here for a list of corporate sponsors of Diabetes UK. In amongst a whole raft of food and diet companies, you’ll see ‘Kelloggs’ (who make Sultana Bran and Special K) and ‘Shredded Wheat’. Could this explain why there highly disruptive foods get special mention from Diabetes UK and make their way into the ‘low-GI’ category even though they are anything but? I don’t know, but we should at least ask the question, I think.

Does eating less carbohydrate help control diabetes?

The evidence regarding lower-carbohydrate eating in diabetes has been well reviewed [1].

This review provided evidence that carbohydrate restriction improves blood sugar control. One study, for instance, found that a low-carbohydrate diet over 6 months allowed more than 95 per cent of type 2 diabetes to reduce or eliminate their medication entirely [2].

It should also be pointed out that, overall, low-carbohydrate diets are significantly more effective than higher carbohydrate, lower-fat diets for weight loss (the evidence is comprehensively reviewed in my latest book Escape the Diet Trap).

Low-carbohydrate eating is not a magic pill, but in practice countless individuals have found it to be highly effective for controlling blood sugar levels and improving markers for disease. I’ve known many type 2 diabetic use this approach to return to a state where tests essentially show no evidence of diabetes.

So what’s wrong with low-carbohydrate diets?

The usual accusation that such diets are high in fat, including ‘saturated’ fat that can cause heart disease (that diabetics are prone to). Actually, there is good evidence that when carbohydrate is cut from the diet, while the percentage of fat increases in the diet, the absolute amount of fat in the diet stays about the same (in other words, those switching to low-carb eating don’t generally eat more fat as a result) [3-6].

This issue is a moot point, because there really is no evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease anyway. There have been several recent major reviews of the evidence regarding role that saturated fat, or fat in general, has in heart disease.

One such review conducted by researchers from McMaster University in Canada found that epidemiological evidence simply does not support a link between saturated fat and heart disease [7]. Another recent study out of Oakland Research Institute in California, USA [8] – this one, a meta-analysis (adding together of several similar studies) found saturated fat consumption has no links with heart disease risk.

Yet another comprehensive review of the relevant literature was performed as part of an ‘Expert Consultation’ held jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the US [9]. Again, no association was found between saturated fat and heart disease. This review also included a meta-analysis of intervention studies in which the effects of low-fat diets (these usually target saturated fat specifically) were assessed. Lower fat diets were not found to reduce the risk of either heart attack or risk of death due to heart disease.

The most recent review of the evidence was a 2011 meta-analysis, in which the results of 48 studies were pooled together [10]. Each of these studies tested the effect of reducing fat and/or modifying its nature in the diet. In general, the study subjects reduced saturated fat intake and/or replaced it at least partially with so-called ‘polyunsaturated’ fats (e.g. vegetable oils). The results of this review showed that these interventions did nothing to reduce the risk death due to cardiovascular disease nor overall risk of death. In studies in which lowering and/or modification of fat was the only intervention, risk of cardiovascular events such as heart disease and stroke was not reduced either.

What about fibre?

You’ll notice that part of Diabetes UK’s justification for including sugar-disruptive foods in the diet of diabetics is the fibre they can provide. The sort of fibre that is generally being referred to here is known as ‘insoluble’ fibre – more colloquially referred to as ‘bran’ or ‘roughage’. This is said to provide bulk to our stools, and help prevent constipation and colon cancer.

Actually, insoluble fibre can be irritant to the gut, and provoke symptoms such as bloating and discomfort. On the other hand, the other main form of fibre – ‘soluble’ fibre – tends to improve bowel symptoms such as constipation and abdominal discomfort [11]. Soluble fibre is found abundantly in natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

The idea that insoluble fibre helps prevent colon cancer is not supported by the research, either. For example, studies show supplementing the diet with fibre does not reduce the risk of cancerous tumours or pre-cancerous lesions [12-14].

The authors of a recent review concluded that “…there does not seem to be much use for fiber in colorectal diseases”, adding that their desire was to “emphasize that what we have all been made to believe about fiber needs a second look. We often choose to believe a lie, as a lie repeated often enough by enough people becomes accepted as the truth”  [15].

Anything else?

On 2nd March I had an email from someone telling me that he’d recently been approached by people in the street asking for donations to Diabetes UK. Nothing odd about that, except that they, apparently, were using Krispy Kreme doughnuts as an inducement. His enquiries reveal that Diabetes UK sanctions this approach and discourages the elimination of any food group from the diet. What, even doughnuts? What sort of a message does using doughnuts to induce people to donate to Diabetes UK send out? Sadly, in my view, it’s a message that is consistent with the wrong-headed and potentially dangerous dietary advice that this charity dishes out generally.

References:

1. Accurso A, et al. Dietary carbohydrate restriction in type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome: time for a critical appraisal. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2008 Apr 8;5:9

2. Westman EC, et al. The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Nutrition & Metabolism 2008;5:36

3. Larosa JC, et al. Effects of high-protein, low-carbohydrate dieting on plasma lipoproteins and body weight. J Am Diet Assoc 1980;77(3):264-70

4. Yancy, WS Jr, et al. A low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat obesity and hyperlipidemia. A randomized, controlled trial. Ann Intern Med 2004;140:69-77

5. Dansinger ML, et al. Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, WeightWatchers, and Zone Diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction. JAMA 2005; 293: 43–53

6. Gardner CD, et al. Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among over- weight premenopausal women. JAMA 2007; 297: 969–977

7. Mente A, et al. A Systematic Review of the Evidence Supporting a Causal Link Between Dietary Factors and Coronary Heart Disease. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(7):659-669

8. Siri-Tarino PW, et al. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease Am J Clin Nutr 2010;91(3):535-46

9. Skeaff CM, et al. Dietary fat and coronary heart disease: summary of evidence from prospective and randomised controlled trials. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism 2009;55:173-201

10. Hooper L, et al. Reduced or modified dietary fat for preventing cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Jul 6;7:CD002137

11. Heizer WD, et al. The role of diet in symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome in adults: a narrative review. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109(7):1204-14

12. Fuchs CS, et al. Dietary fiber and the risk of colorectal cancer and adenoma in women. N Engl J Med. 1999;340(3):169-76

13. Jacobs ET, et al. Intake of supplemental and total fiber and risk of colorectal adenoma recurrence in the wheat bran fiber trial. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2002 11(9):906-14

14. Alberts DS, et al. Lack of effect of a high-fiber cereal supplement on the recurrence of colorectal adenomas. Phoenix Colon Cancer Prevention Physicians’ Network N Engl J Med. 2000;342(16):1156-62

15. Tan KY, et al. Fiber and colorectal diseases: separating fact from fiction. World J Gastroenterol. 2007;13(31):4161-7

GI references in this blog post values are derived from: Atkinson FS, et al. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Diabetes Care 2008;31(12):2281-2283

This post originally posted by Dr John Briffa on his web site: http://www.drbriffa.com/

Don’t let his hairstyle fool you!! He really knows his stuff!!

Be well – see you next week.

From Dr. Johnny Bowden – Why You Don’t Need to Worry About that Women and Vitamins Study

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Welcome Back!

As most of you know I rarely have guest posts and even more rarely do I re-publish something from someone else.

However the post I’ve included today is so important for our understanding of how the media and unfortunately many medical companies & practitioners twist the tuth to give their p[referred story that I felt that I had to put ti up here.

The original can be found here: http://jonnybowdenblog.com/women-and-vitamins-study/bowden.

If you’re not on his mailing list you should be – he provides great, unbiased information. (& no I am NOT an affiliate, nor do I earna cent from recommending his site…)

Without further ado – here is this imprtant article – it’s long but well worth a read. More from me next week.

Why You Don’t Need to Worry About that Women and Vitamins Study

by Dr. Jonny · 14 comments

 

Before I start talking about that vitamin study you all want to know about,  I want to say a few words about MSNBC and FOX NEWS.

Trust me, it’s relevant.

No matter what side of the political fence you’re on, I’m sure you’ll agree that cable news has become extremely shrill and highly partisan. Both MSNBC and FOX may agree on the facts they are reporting but then spin them in an entirely different way to reach entirely different conclusions.

Each political argument is founded on certain “if’s, and’s and “maybes”; i.e. this policy will lower (or raise) the debt assuming certain projections (such as medical costs or unemployment) are in fact true. Different researchers come up with very different projections (just read the Wall Street Journal stock advice columns!) Depending on whose projections and figures you use, even well-intentioned honest people can come to very different conclusions.

So why am I talking about cable news in a story about women and vitamins?

Because, sadly, the same thing that happens on cable news happens in nutrition science.

The problem is everyone knows it’s happening in cable news, but people naively think science is always “objective” and reporting about science is actually accurate.

Neither is true.

Take the latest scary study that’s got everybody all a-dwiddle about how if you’re an older woman taking some common vitamins, you might die.

The Media’s Take: Fair and Balanced, Anyone?

Let’s start with the reporting. One typical headline I saw about this story shrieked, “More Bad News About Vitamins!” Now if you read that without slowly shaking your head, go back and think for a minute about what’s implied in that headline.

We’re talking one study with a very mildly (and very questionable) negative result (we’ll get to that in a minute).

Now compare that one study to the dozens and dozens and dozens of studies that come out on a regular basis showing the benefits of vitamin K, vitamin D, vitamin C, minerals like selenium, magnesium, fats like omega-3’s, and even- in several studies- the lowly multivitamin. A writer or newspaper or television station with a different slant might easily have titled this story, “A Surprising Negative Study on Vitamins Amidst a Sea of Positive Ones”. “More Bad News About Vitamins!”? Serious?

(Yes, I used “serious?” instead of “seriously” on purpose. I feel like it gives me street cred. Please humor me.)

OK now let’s get to the study itself, and what it found.

Which isn’t very much. But let’s take a look.

“Let’s Go To The Videotape”

The study was titled “Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women: The Iowa Women’s Health Study“.

The researchers took the database of the Iowa Women’s Health Study and examined the records of 38,772 older women- average age 61.2 at the start of the study—looking specifically at their use of dietary supplements.

Well, they didn’t exactly look at the women at all, since it was not a clinical study. No one was given supplements and monitored, supplement use wasn’t confirmed by any outside source, nothing like that.  No, they assessed supplement use with three….count ‘em, three… self-reporting questionnaires given to the women at three different points during the 18 year study, which began in 1986  and continued through 2004.  (No one was asked about doses, brands, combinations, nothing. Just “did you use a supplement?” “Yes: Vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin E, multivitamin, calcium, iron”.)

OK, cool, see you in 11 years or so!

The researchers then examined the death records through the State Health Registry of Iowa and through the National Death Index. They checked for all original 38,772 women and found that by Dec. 31, 2008, 15,594 of them had indeed died. (Which was approximately 40% of the women. But do remember, at baseline- 1986—they were pushing 62. This is 22 years later. An optimistic way to look at it is that 60% of these ladies were living into their mid-eighties! But I digress, and this really has nothing to do with the story.)

But that’s OK, because the study itself is pretty boring and doesn’t have very much to tell us. Although you’d never know it from the media attention it got (see above).

First let’s look at the conclusions of the study, then we’ll talk about what they mean. (Spoiler alert: they mean next to nothing. I’ll show you why.)

The conclusions of the study (in the researchers’ words): “In older women, several commonly used dietary vitamin and mineral supplements may be associated with increased total mortality risk; this association is strongest with supplemental iron. In contrast to the findings of many studies, calcium is associated with decreased risk”.

Since the words “associated” or “association” are used three times in the above paragraph, let’s take a minute and look at what an association (observational) study actually is.

What Exactly Is An “Observational” Study?

In an observational study from which many associations are generated, you take a whole bunch of people- thousands of them—and you gather data about a zillion different things.

Maybe it’s blood pressure and cholesterol, maybe it’s heart disease, maybe it’s what they ate for breakfast, how often they brush their teeth,  how many of their parents had diabetes,  how many of them own television sets, practice the rhumba, love Lady Gaga, take antidepressants, or pop a Centrum now and then.

OK now you’ve got a statistician’s version of heaven—tons and tons of data. Eighty gazillion gigabytes of numbers from thousands of people, and it’s your job to see if there’s any pattern, to determine which things are “associated”, meaning “found together”. If two things are said to be associated, that means there is some relationship between these two things that’s unlikely to be an accident.

Which brings us to “yellow finger syndrome”.

Correlation, Cause and “Yellow Finger Syndrome”

Interestingly, people with lung cancer are more likely to have yellow, stained fingers. So yellow stained fingers are positively “associated” (correlated) with lung cancer. In any given group, the more cases of yellow fingers you see, the more cases of cancer are likely.

Hmm…so who would have yellow fingers?

Let me guess. Smokers?

You can see in this case how wrong it would be to assume that because two things are associated, there is a cause and effect relationship. An association is not proof of cause. Yellow fingers don’t cause lung cancer, and lung cancer doesn’t cause yellow fingers. They’re found together because they’re both associated with a third variable, namely smoking.  Smoking causes lung cancer, and yellow fingers are a kind of irrelevant by-product of the real cause. (This kind of mistake is made all the time in cholesterol studies where high cholesterol is “associated” with heart disease except it’s not a cause even though everyone thinks it is. But I digress.)

So one thing we might ask is, what else might be true of women who are taking vitamins? Remember this study began in 1986, and vitamin usage wasn’t what it is now. Maybe these people were a bit sicker at baseline and were seeking out vitamins as a way of not getting sicker? Maybe they were people who were eating a particularly bad diet and told themselves that vitamin caps would make up for it? Who knows?

You always have to ask yourself, with any association, what else might be going on here? What else might be interfering with or “confounding” the results? Were all the vitamin takers, for example, also soccer players? (Of course not, but there’s a wild example of how an uncontrolled variable can have a huge effect on the results without anyone noticing.)

The Confounding Variable Issue

Researchers are very aware of confounding variables, so they try to adjust for these influences with statistical techniques (“adjusting for possible confounding variables”) but they don’t always adjust for the right ones. Or they can over adjust and wind up with an “association” that’s a pure statistical fluke. I’ll come back to this “adjusting” thing in a minute-  it’s very relevant to our little story, and wait till you hear how it relates to this study.

Though you’d never know it in a million years from any newspaper article or television story about this study, here’s what was true of the supplement using women at the beginning of the study: (This is taken directly from the actual research paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine.)

“At baseline, compared to nonusers, supplement users:

  1. had a lower prevalence of diabetes
  2. had a lower prevalence of high blood pressure
  3. smoked less
  4. had lower average BMI
  5. had lower average waist to hip ratio
  6. had higher educational levels
  7. were more physically active
  8. were more likely to be on estrogen replacement therapy

Then, get this—(you’re going to love this one!)

Adjusted for age and (calorie) intake, supplement use of vitamin B complex, vitamins C, D and E and calcium had significantly lower risk of total mortality compared to nonuse.

Wait, I thought the study concluded vitamin takers had a higher risk of total mortality?

Patience, grasshopper. We aren’t finished with the data.

OK, the researchers must’ve thought, age and calories are important, glad we adjusted for those, but there are probably a few other things to adjust for, so they did just that. “With further adjustment only the use of calcium retained a significantly lower risk of mortality”, they explain.

So none of the vitamins (except calcium) had a protective effect, which was exactly the hypothesis they set out to prove. (Their words: “Our hypothesis, based on the findings of a previous study by some of us, was that the use of dietary supplements would not be associated with a reduced rate of total mortality”.)

Great, hypothesis confirmed, vitamins suck, we can all go home now, right?

Ah what the heck. Let’s squeeze the data a little more, throw in some more things, see what we come up with.

Uh oh. Squeeze that data even more and presto now those three-times-in-18 years self-reports of vitamin use are now “associated” with a higher rate of mortality.

Do I have to tell you they were serving champagne that day in every marketing department of every pharmaceutical company in America?

So What’s the Risk?

The real punch line is that with all that hoopla, what “increased risk” of mortality are we talking about? Depending on the vitamin, maybe 6%- 15%. But let’s look at what that means, since it sounds way worse than it is.

Let’s say non-vitamin users died at a rate of 15 per 1000. A 6% increase in the risk of dying associated with vitamin use would mean that vitamin users would be now be expected to die at a rate of  15.9 women per 1000. A 10% increase in risk would mean that 16.5 women per 1000 would be expected to die. Now that’s no small thing if you happen to be among the .9 – 1.5 women affected, but let’s keep it in perspective. It’s a tiny association of questionable meaning-not exactly the death toll for the multivitamin, as Dr. David Katz solemnly proclaimed it on the Huffington Post.

I mean, come on.

Look, I’m not dismissing this study completely. But I am saying that there’s very little likelihood there’s anything to it. Put enough data into the mix and you can come up with associations to make almost any case. (The China Study, T. C. Campbell’s book about The China Project—a massive study of diet and health in rural China– is a perfect example of this kind of data selecting. Out of 8000 associations generated in the original China Project, T.C. Campbell picked just those that supported his pro-vegan hypothesis and put them in his book, The China Study, conveniently omitting all the many associations that refuted his theory. But don’t get me started.)

Now if I were preparing a scholarly rebuttal to this study, I’d put it in perspective by citing the the hundreds of studies that have shown benefits for vitamins and minerals. I could easily go back and search out the many, many studies showing how low folic acid is a risk for cancer, how folic acid helps prevent spinal tube birth defects, how vitamin D affects mood, physical performance, obesity, cancer, how vitamin C increases phagytosis (a function of the immune system), how magnesium is associated with lower blood pressure and better blood sugar control, indeed how virtually every vitamin tested in the study has been shown in other studies to perform vitally important functions essential to your health.

But honestly, I give speeches, write books and columns and run a health website for a living. I don’t have research assistants. I don’t have graduate student interns who can look all this stuff up and find the references.

So what I’m hoping is that one of the more brilliant health bloggers like Denise Minger or Chris Masterjohn, avowed and self-described data-nerds, will spend a week sitting up all night with the research and will come up with their usual brilliant, referenced, unimpeachable, “just the facts, ma’am” rebuttals to the findings in this study.

Meanwhile let me just say this: It’s a tempest in a teapot.

Does it make any logical sense that in a study of over 30,000 women lasting 19 years, with eight gazillion other factors involved, popping the equivalent of a Centrum or One-A-Day (or saying that you did on the three questionnaires you filled out over the course of the study) made you more likely to die?

Seriously?

That just doesn’t pass the smell test for me.

 

The Passing of someone ‘On the path’…

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Welcome back…

No training info this week, just a short eulogy.

On Thursday last my best friend, someone I called brother, even though we weren’t, passed away at the age of 41. Daran Pratt was, and is, the exemplar of the standard to which Personal Trainers should be judged against. From a background of chronic substance abuse that lasted for decades from his early teens, Daran overcame all that life through at him until the very last.

Daran & Trinity

At the time of his death Daran was a published author (check out his bio & book at www.onthepath.com.au ), professional speaker, lead singer in a rock band( www.satyrico.com ) life coach, Martial Artist, knife aficionado and a Personal Trainer who had just sold the gym he & his wife Trinity had built up to the best ‘alternative’ gym in the area. With Trinity by his side; they worked as a team that saw them go from broke to comfortable in a few very short years. God knows they deserved it given where they started from and how hard they worked for it all…

Daran loved to train, a skilled CSSD/SC, Muay Thai, MMA & Krav Maga exponent & trainer, he loved to spar, kettle bells & ropes, sandbags & clubs, tyres and barbells  – in fact anything that fitted his philosophy of functional fitness. He eschewed chronic cardio, the typical big gyms, their results and their ethos. He preferred to train people in a way that was fun, challenging and delivered results in a short space of time. More than a few of his clients credit him and his methods with saving their lives and getting them off expensive & financially draining medications.

Likewise his life coaching clients also achieved goals and dreams with his guidance & insight.

He was a big kid, whose restless mind saw him start many projects at the same time, often moving on before they were completed, and then coming back to them for a second go round. Some his favourite moments came from kayaking or paddle boarding on Brisbane waters or at the Haven near Terrigal.

No – he was not a saint. He was a man of great & varied passions; who also had an explosive temper could sometimes be petty and on the odd occasion cruel, callous and thoughtless.

Told you he liked functional style training...

More often than not though, he was caring, empathetic, patient and loving. And strong.  Really strong in character, beliefs and body. Daran proudly took no crap from anyone. A wide eyed dreamer with vast energies, he had achieved many of his dreams and goal and was working on the next set – including a drug rehabilitation centre – at the time of his passing.

He was larger than life, loved sake, hated cider and was the ‘glue’ that held a diverse group of people together. He will be missed sorely by those that knew him and, unbeknowingly, by those who did not.

I loved this man as a friend & brother and, like so many others, miss him already.

For those that knew him no further explanation is necessary, for those who did not, no explanation is perhaps possible.

Vale, Daran