The first nutrition counseling session I ever remember doing about 15 years ago was with a man with Type 2 diabetes.  He told me that his doctor had diagnosed him that same week, and when he went to his “diabetes educator,” she told him that this was an incurable condition, and that eventually, he’d likely have to take insulin shots.

 

We met, laid out a plan, and three months later, his doctor officially deemed this man, “Cured.” 

 

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Life is full of surprises.  I had almost completed my article for this month’s newsletter when Doug’s office emailed me and said the topic this month would be diabetes.  “No problem,” I said to myself. “I can use this case study next month and I will get my article in on time for once.” So I started on a second article and was two-thirds done when Mr. August came into the office. “This is the case I have to write about it.”  So, I put aside Case study #2 for another month and started Case study #3.   Let’s get started before I change my mind again.

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The Urban Dictionary defines the word “bêtes” as what you call a person with diabetes without having to say the whole word.  My grandmother and an uncle both died of bêtes and they were not alone. As a matter of fact, according to The International Diabetes Federation, every 10 seconds, diabetes and the related disorders of this disease, kills another person…every ten seconds!

The statistics are staggering. Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide (costs about $232 billion) and is expected to affect 380 million people by 2025 (costs expected to be about $303 billion). I could continue, but you get the point! It is my hope that after reading this issue, you will better understand your role in preventing this dreaded disease. 

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Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a very common health problem. Blood pressures higher than 140 mm Hg systolic (pumping phase of heartbeat) and/or 90 mm Hg diastolic (relaxed phase of heartbeat) are considered to be hypertension. According to research published in the November 2008 Hypertension, about 29% of all US adults had high blood pressure in the period 1999-2004.

Hypertension puts people at increased risk for many serious health problems including heart disease, strokes, kidney problems and damage to vision. Chronic hypertension is also a major cause of headaches, nausea and mental disorientation.
The early signs of hypertension often give no warning and the hypertensive patient often feels fine. That is why it is important to get your blood pressure checked at least once a year. Many pharmacies and supermarkets have automatic blood pressure testing cuffs that will test your blood pressure for free.

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As Dr. Jennings alludes to in her article this month, we made the decision late in the month to gear this newsletter toward yet another in a growing number (all of them) of mysterious autoimmune diseases to wit the scientific literature professes, “the cause is unknown.”

Marketing of this particular autoimmune disease is interesting to me, because using the same breath as they do to apprise we, the people, that “the cause is unknown,” they continue to actively promote getting to a doctor to get it diagnosed! If I didn’t know that air fills my tires, would I not be using water to fill them? How do you accurately diagnose any disease if you don’t know what causes it? And therein lies what Kyle Drew, Dr. Lynn Jennings and I ask throughout the August 2009 issue of KNOW THIS.

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