"There's no proof in diabetes that social networking is helpful," says Jason Bronner, a doctor at the University of California San Diego Medical Center. He's leading a study that will help determine whether social networking can actually help patients manage diabetes.

"The quote that was used was appropriate that to the best of my knowledge, at this time, there is no published evidence that online social networking improves outcomes in those with diabetes. That was based on my last literature review done shortly before the interview with Lauren Silverman from NPR back in October. One of the focuses she wanted to get across was big pharma influence on diabetes social networking sites, which I agree with occurs (the papers published on diabetes social networking clearly identify this occurring).

"With that said, the hypothesis going into my study, which Lauren did not focus on for her story, is that online social networking works. In fact the design of my study is to answer the question “which type of person does it work best for” and NOT “does it work” (though the latter should come out in the analysis).  We will try and determine, based on someone’s PAM score (patient activation measure-a variable that can tell how confident someone is about their condition), how well does knowledge and attitudes change over the course of the study after 6 months of exposure to a closed diabetes social networking site (which eliminates outside influences/3rd party solicitations identified by Lauren).

Hope this helps, and certainly hope I didn’t alienate any of your community. My goal is to publish something where there is a current gap in the medical literature."

- Dr. Jason Bronner

And now, we need YOU to leave a comment over at the NPR story asking the reporter to follow-up the story. This is what Diabetes Advocates has written and is asking:

Please comment on NPR's article with your short story of social media success.