Diabetes

My God-daughter called me today with a bit of a scare. She had been tested for diabetes at the tender age of twenty-seven about the same age that Paul was when he found out he had diabetes. The tests for her were negative. Yea! However the reality of diabetes looms on the horizon not just for Brandy but for many more in the United States.

Your diet can trigger health issues like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer or it can be utilized to promote health, strong bones, and a beautiful complexion. The choice is a matter of what you put into your mouth. You could eat nine hundred calories a day and lose weight. It really doesn’t matter what calories you consume. Four and a half candy bars are about nine hundred calories. So are four salads, one banana, one slice of sprouted bread with peanut butter, cup of herb tea, ten glasses of water, an apple, six ounces of lemon sole fish, three pieces of California roll with soy sauce. Now which option—the candy or the food—would be the better health choice for dieting? Yet advertisement after advertisement shows skinny people eating “diet” candy bars or getting energy from a peanut caramel bar. No wonder we are confused.

Whole, fresh, and mostly raw foods offer the solution to hereditary—and I use that term as loosely as the AMA does—illnesses like hypertension and diabetes. Americans must give up fast, processed, and comfort foods to live healthy. Don’t take my word for it. Research magazines like “Diabetes Management” or books like “The Cure.” Please look at the statistics below. The source is American Diabetes Association http://www.diabetes.org/.

Data from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (released Jan. 26, 2011)
Total prevalence of diabetes
Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.
Diagnosed: 18.8 million people
Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people
Prediabetes: 79 million people*
New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.
* In contrast to the 2007 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, which used fasting glucose data to estimate undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes, the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet uses both fasting glucose and A1C levels to derive estimates for undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes. These tests were chosen because they are most frequently used in clinical practice.

Under 20 years of age
• 215,000, or 0.26% of all people in this age group have diabetes
• About 1 in every 400 children and adolescents has type 1 diabetes
Age 20 years or older
• 25.6 million, or 11.3% of all people in this age group have diabetes
Morbidity and Mortality
• In 2007, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause on 71,382 death certificates and was listed as a contributing factor on an additional 160,022 death certificates. This means that diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths.

Brandy is changing her life by changing her diet. I hope you will do the same.