Stolen shamelessly from the Facebook profile of George Takei (aka Mr. Sulu).
The topic of diabetes has gotten a lot of attention in the past week. While I’m happy to see the disease getting more general exposure, and Americans gaining a better understanding about the disease, I have found myself extremely frustrated that its quickly jumped onto that growing list of conditions and problems that can be solved by taking “medicine” (there’s a pill for that, right?).
Prevention is THE BEST medicine. Diabetes can be cured without a needle or a pill. But there lies the challenge. It takes a ton of discipline and often times a person has to undo decades of bad habits to get healthy. From my perspective, most unhealthy Americans lack the ability to change their lifestyles to make themselves well.
Sure you could eat like crap, avoid exercise and otherwise take very bad care of yourself and never have a problem. A lot of people do. But that is essentially playing Russian roulette with your future. You could skate by “scott-free.” The alternative: someday in your future you could find yourself in a doctor’s office staring at a dramatically altered future full of alarming news and warnings. Unpleasant realities that could include a loss of vision, a lack of feeling in your hands and feet, the loss of a toe, or worse, losing a limb. My father was a type 2 diabetic, and I had a front row seat with how evil the disease can be.
While a lot depends on genetic makeup and a predisposition to the disease, diabetes does not play favorites. It needs no celebrity messenger, no messiah.
Does it need a cure? Before we cure diabetes, we need to cure our own ignorance toward our own health. The things that prevent diabetes are largely within our control; diet, exercise, sleep. Be your own cure. Never get diabetes in the first place.
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- Introducing The Juvenile Diabetes Cure Alliance (diabetesdaily.com)
