Low Carb South: Low-Carbohydrate Approaches in Metabolic Health and Diabetes: Evidence, Practice, and Future Directions

Booking closes Tuesday April 22nd at 9pm

The organisers Dr Sue Cradock, Mark Hancock and Dr David Cavan have been involved with supporting people with diabetes to adopt changes in their lifestyles, with the objective of improving their overall metabolic health, improving management of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and achieving remission of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.

With increasing interest in the benefits of therapeutic carbohydrate reduction, this one day conference will enable health professionals to:

1. Explore the role of low-carbohydrate dietary approaches in managing and improving metabolic health, with a particular focus on diabetes prevention and treatment.

2. Increase understanding of the mechanisms, clinical outcomes, and practical applications of low-carb interventions,

3. Gain Insights from recent research and clinical experience of a range of speakers.

4. Increase their confidence in supporting this approach in their practice.

Invited speakers include Dr Campbell Murdoch, Dr Trudi Deakin, Dr Ian Lake, Dr Karen Malone, Dr Sue Beckers and people who have improved their health through carbohydrate reduction.

Programme

0830   Registration

0900    Welcome and introduction to the day - Sue Cradock, Diabetes Clinical Nurse Specialist and Mark Hancock, Health and Wellbeing Coach

0915    Carbohydrate restriction in the Management of Type 2 Diabetes: An Evidence-Based Review - Dr David Cavan, Consultant Endocrinologist

1000    Lowering carbohydrate: what is good nutrition when advising low carb approaches? - Dr Trudi Deakin, CEO XPert Health

1045    Coffee

1115   Low carb and Type 1 diabetes - Dr Ian Lake, GP 

1200   Low carb to improve metabolic health - Dr Campbell Murdoch, GP 

1245    Lunch

1330    Carbohydrate restriction; risks, benefits and patient centred outcomes: panel discussion (David Cavan, Trudi Deakin, Ian Lake and Campbell Murdoch)

1410   Implementing low carbohydrate protocols in primary care: tools, resources and real-world strategies: 3 x 20-minute sessions from those who have/are delivering low carb approaches:   Dr Karen Malone, GP; Dr Sue Beckers, GP and Mark Hancock

1510   Portsmouth Under 40s Low Carb Project  - Mark Hancock 

1530   Tea

1550   Facilitated discussion “Counselling and coaching to support people adopting a low carbohydrate lifestyle: Practical Skills and Cultural Sensitivity”   Dr Sue Cradock and panel of people who have adopted a low carb approach

1650  Closing Remarks

1700   Finish

Target Audience:

Diabetes Specialist teams; General practitioners; Dietitians and nutritionists; Practice Nurses and allied health professionals; Health coaches and social prescribers.

This conference is supported by Metabolic Health Training Ltd and speakers are providing their time free of charge.

Cost:   £75 to include all refreshments and lunch.

Speaker biographies

Dr Sue Beckers was a GP with her husband for 30 years. She completed a Masters in Nutritional Medicine and published a teaching pack on lunchboxes for Key Stage 2 children. In 2018 she trained in Therapeutic Low Carb with Nutrition Network and became one of their first Practitioners, a tutor and a lecturer. Since 2018 she has run Slow Carb groups for T2DM remission and is now on the MISSION NUTRITION project of the Public Health Collaboration developing a teaching programme on REAL food for 6 to 7 year olds. 

Dr David Cavan is a Consultant Endocrinologist at University Hospitals Dorset. Frustrated by the lack of effectiveness of diabetes medications, he changed his practice in 2010 to focus on promoting lifestyle change to people with type 2 diabetes, predominantly by advising carbohydrate reduction. He has helped many people reverse type 2 diabetes and has written a number of books for people with diabetes, most recently including 'How to Reverse Type 2 diabetes and Prediatetes' in 2024, and 'Managing Type 2 Diabetes' in 2025.

Dr Sue Cradock has over 35 years' experience as a specialist nurse, supporting people with type 1 and Type 2 diabetes to manage their health. She gained her PhD though studying how to be an effective diabetes educator. For the past 10 years she has worked in primary care, where she has seen that the drugs used to help people with Type 2 diabetes are ineffective at helping people gain control of their overall health.

Dr Trudi Deakin is Chief Executive of X-PERT Health and specialises in research, training and empowering structured education in the prevention and management of conditions such as diabetes and obesity. Trudi’s first degree in Nutrition and Dietetics was obtained in 1993, followed by a teaching qualification in 1998 and a doctorate in diabetes in 2004. As founder of X-PERT Health and author of the X-PERT Programmes, Trudi has trained more than 1,500 healthcare professionals to become educators, which has permitted the delivery of structured education to more than 500,000 people with prediabetes or diabetes.

Mark Hancock is a Health and Wellbeing coach. He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2010, at the age of 39. He found that the standard advice did not provide the lifestyle changes needed to reverse his diabetes. After exploring what he could do for himself, he adopted lifestyle changes that has meant that he has been in remission of Type 2 diabetes since 2016 and at the same time he has become fitter and healthier than ever. This led him to train as a health and wellbeing coach, in which role he has been able to bring a high level of empathy, respect, and understanding in delivering education and support to people with diabetes.

Dr Ian Lake has worked as a doctor in the NHS for nearly four decades, most of this time as a general practitioner. He was diagnosed with LADA Type 1 Diabetes aged 36 and managed it conventionally for 20 years before adopting a very low carbohydrate lifestyle for the past decade. This led to remarkable improvements in his blood glucose control as well as improvements in daily life, with much less severe and frequent hypoglycaemia and no longer on the roller coaster of blood glucose caused by carbs. Such a profound change has motivated him to provide information about very low carbohydrate diets to others with type 1 diabetes.

Dr Karen Malone has been a GP in Southampton for 15years. Her specialist interest is in metabolic health and she strongly believes in addressing root causes of ill health and promoting lifestyle change.

Dr Campbell Murdoch is a GP with a special interest in metabolic health. He works within and outside the NHS. He is a scientific advisor to the Public Health Collaboration charity. He is an advisor for Combe Grove Metabolic Health Centre in Bath. Campbell also has a background in quality improvement in healthcare.