Dr. Ranjitha Nadendla: Helping Diabetic Patients Minimalize Their Medicine Usage Through Affordable Diabetic Reversal Program
Dr. Ranjitha Nadendla
Emergency Physician & Diabetologist
In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, Dr. Ranjitha shares details about her diabetes reversal program, the challenges she has been facing throughout the journey, and much more.
Could you give a brief description of your Diabetic Reversal Program?
The Diabetes reversal program is a holistic approach, which started four years back to treat diabetes. I wanted this program to be a blueprint for everyone to take control of their blood sugar, their health, and their lives. The whole program is designed on three pillars, which are modifying diet and exercise, treating complications of diabetesand other existing comorbidities, and stress management and deaddiction.
Diet regimen is designed individually depending on their blood sugar levels and our exercise regimens are simple and effective workouts tailored according to age, bone strength, and various other parameters. We try to heal chronic pains through physiotherapy and acupuncture. Psychological counseling sessions are done if required, as I believe mental health is the key parameter in controlling any metabolic disorder. Blood work and necessary investigations are done periodically to assess the
severity of diabetes and monitor complications.
There are three phases in the program. In the first phase, we try to normalize high blood sugars with their existing medications by introducing them to diet and exercise regimens. We educate the patient regarding the root causes of diabetes. In the second phase, diet and exercises are tailored for each individual depending on their blood sugar control, thereby we start reducing diabetic medicines or insulin. We also start counseling sessions and treat the complications of diabetes. In the third phase, we try to maintain the corrected sugar levels for at least six months and follow up regularly till one year to make sure that they are comfortable with the new lifestyle changes we made. Out of 4000-5000 patients to date, we have successfully stopped around 60-70 percent of insulin intake and 50 percent of medicine intake in our patients through our program. Along with this, overall well-being is also significantly improved especially in the elderly age group.
The core idea behind the diabetes reversal program is to minimalize the medicines. While the Diabetic reversal program is done by many people in India, they're very costly and are charged around 25,000-50000 per session. It was my father’s dream to establish an affordable and accessible healthcare center for ordinary people. So we don’t run it as a commercial center and don’t charge anything extra for the diabetes reversal program.
What are the latest challenges hindering people from making the right lifestyle choices? What are the solutions for helping people make the right choices?
The major challenge I think that is hindering people from making proper lifestyle choices is the proper mindset. People lack the willpower to change their lifestyles and don't even have the required knowledge to know the root cause of any disease. After getting diagnosed with diabetes, all people think about is visiting the doctor, taking medicines, or opting for insulin if it’s not coming down. Majority of the people are still not aware of the fact that diabetes is just a metabolic disorder that can be reversed. There are a lot of myths and taboos regarding diabetes or hypertension.
People don’t even believe that diabetes can be controlled and the medicine can be stopped or controlled by 60-70 percent just by
There are three phases in the program. In the first phase, we try to normalize high blood sugars with their existing medications by introducing them to diet and exercise regimens. We educate the patient regarding the root causes of diabetes. In the second phase, diet and exercises are tailored for each individual depending on their blood sugar control, thereby we start reducing diabetic medicines or insulin. We also start counseling sessions and treat the complications of diabetes. In the third phase, we try to maintain the corrected sugar levels for at least six months and follow up regularly till one year to make sure that they are comfortable with the new lifestyle changes we made. Out of 4000-5000 patients to date, we have successfully stopped around 60-70 percent of insulin intake and 50 percent of medicine intake in our patients through our program. Along with this, overall well-being is also significantly improved especially in the elderly age group.
Majority of the people are still not aware of the fact that diabetes is just a metabolic disorder that can be reversed
The core idea behind the diabetes reversal program is to minimalize the medicines. While the Diabetic reversal program is done by many people in India, they're very costly and are charged around 25,000-50000 per session. It was my father’s dream to establish an affordable and accessible healthcare center for ordinary people. So we don’t run it as a commercial center and don’t charge anything extra for the diabetes reversal program.
What are the latest challenges hindering people from making the right lifestyle choices? What are the solutions for helping people make the right choices?
The major challenge I think that is hindering people from making proper lifestyle choices is the proper mindset. People lack the willpower to change their lifestyles and don't even have the required knowledge to know the root cause of any disease. After getting diagnosed with diabetes, all people think about is visiting the doctor, taking medicines, or opting for insulin if it’s not coming down. Majority of the people are still not aware of the fact that diabetes is just a metabolic disorder that can be reversed. There are a lot of myths and taboos regarding diabetes or hypertension.
People don’t even believe that diabetes can be controlled and the medicine can be stopped or controlled by 60-70 percent just by
changing lifestyle habits and focusing on exercise. I mainly see a hindrance due to a lack of discipline, awareness, and knowledge about the disease.I want people to understand that the practice of carbohydrate restrictions for diabetes dates back more than a century when the diet was considered as gold standard treatment for diabetes. Various trials were conducted on this aspect by several doctors around the globe and were proven scientifically safe and effective.
Could you reflect on some of the toughest challenges you have encountered in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
As an emergency physician and diabetologist, one of the toughest challenges I face is treating adolescent age groups and young adults. Junk foods lack of physical activity, increasing obesity, irrational use of steroid medications, antibiotic abuse destroying immunity, and alcohol addiction in teens are the major factors contributing to the rapid prevalence of diabetes in our younger generations. To overcome these issues, we started family counseling sessions and public talks to increase awareness and educate them on healthy lifestyle choices and metabolic disorders. What I learned in this tough journey is a multimodality approach, which is a game changer in treating diabetes. Consistency and perseverance are key factors every diabetic patient should develop to stop this catastrophic disease from killing every organ in the body.
Removing the patient’s mental and emotional connection with food is one of the biggest challenges that I face. People focus on cutting down the sugar by taking medicines and insulin but they don’t understand the root cause, which is a carb. While parents nowadays are more interested in the studies of their children and hardly focus on their physical well being and exercise, which is one of the major reasons behind early diabetes in children.
Dr. Ranjitha Nadendla, Emergency Physician & Diabetologist, Dr. Ranjitha's Hospital and Center for Diabetes
Dr. Ranjitha is an accomplished emergency Physician and Diabetologist with experience in dealing with a wide variety of medical emergencies as well as long term ailments. As the Emergency Physician & Diabetologist at Dr. Ranjitha's Hospital and Center for Diabetes, she has been providing affordable diabetes reversal programs to her patients. A strong supporter of affordable healthcare services, Dr.Ranjitha has done her graduation from Katuri Medical College, Guntur, MRCEM from the royal college of emergency medicine UK, and Diabetology Certification from Apollo Hospitals.
Could you reflect on some of the toughest challenges you have encountered in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
As an emergency physician and diabetologist, one of the toughest challenges I face is treating adolescent age groups and young adults. Junk foods lack of physical activity, increasing obesity, irrational use of steroid medications, antibiotic abuse destroying immunity, and alcohol addiction in teens are the major factors contributing to the rapid prevalence of diabetes in our younger generations. To overcome these issues, we started family counseling sessions and public talks to increase awareness and educate them on healthy lifestyle choices and metabolic disorders. What I learned in this tough journey is a multimodality approach, which is a game changer in treating diabetes. Consistency and perseverance are key factors every diabetic patient should develop to stop this catastrophic disease from killing every organ in the body.
Removing the patient’s mental and emotional connection with food is one of the biggest challenges that I face. People focus on cutting down the sugar by taking medicines and insulin but they don’t understand the root cause, which is a carb. While parents nowadays are more interested in the studies of their children and hardly focus on their physical well being and exercise, which is one of the major reasons behind early diabetes in children.
Dr. Ranjitha Nadendla, Emergency Physician & Diabetologist, Dr. Ranjitha's Hospital and Center for Diabetes
Dr. Ranjitha is an accomplished emergency Physician and Diabetologist with experience in dealing with a wide variety of medical emergencies as well as long term ailments. As the Emergency Physician & Diabetologist at Dr. Ranjitha's Hospital and Center for Diabetes, she has been providing affordable diabetes reversal programs to her patients. A strong supporter of affordable healthcare services, Dr.Ranjitha has done her graduation from Katuri Medical College, Guntur, MRCEM from the royal college of emergency medicine UK, and Diabetology Certification from Apollo Hospitals.