Sometimes I think this blog should have a category called “It’s worse than you think” or “I’m really not exaggerating,” or maybe just “More scary news.” Sometimes I even get the feeling that people think I may be overstating the urgency of the diabetes epidemic. So I gathered together a few statistics for you.
According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of 3 million kids and teens in 7 states across the U.S., type 2 diabetes increased 30 percent between 2001 and 2008. Diabetes rates are projected to rise to affect approximately one-third of current 12-year-olds. Between 2024 and 2060, the number of children with type 2 diabetes is projected to increase by 700%. Seven hundred percent.
Not long ago the Associated Press said that, “An estimated 366 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, and the global epidemic is getting worse….” According to the Washington Post, “The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has found that…one person is now dying from the disease every seven seconds.” At the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Portugal, the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) announced that “The worldwide diabetes epidemic continues to worsen, with…4.6 million deaths each year, and annual health-care spending at $465 billion.” Then IDF president Jean Claude Mbanya MD said that “the numbers are likely underestimated, since not all countries have good data….” Dr. Mbanya estimates that the diabetes epidemic will affect nearly 600 million people within 20 years.
Am I surprised by this news? Absolutely not. But you don’t have to live with this; you can do something about it. So here are a few ideas:
1) Go for a walk around your block. Inviting a friend to join you will increase the benefit even more.
2) Eat a breakfast that is not made from white flour. Yesterday I had a Santa Fe omelet with loads of veggies, salsa, and jalapeño peppers, and it was quite tasty.
3) Slice up a pineapple. I learned how to do it from Wolfgang Puck, and it was a lot easier than I thought. First, turn a ripe, fragrant pineapple on its side and slice off the top and bottom. Then stand it up on its bottom, and slice off the skin in long vertical strips. It takes approximately 8-10 cuts to get all the way around the pineapple. Don’t worry about wasting the flesh; just remove all the skin. Finally, turn the pineapple back onto its side and slice into 1/2-inch rounds. Then slice these into half-moons or quarters and pile them onto a plate.
4) Put on some sunscreen, go back outside, and get a little sunshine.
5) Garden. If you don’t have one, make one. If you can’t have one, get some potting soil and seeds, and grow some herbs in your kitchen window. If you forget to water them and they dry up, just plant more.
6) Roast a couple of beets. Scrub, slice into quarters, sprinkle with olive oil and salt, and spread onto a cookie sheet. Cook at 450F until you can easily push a fork through.
7) Make homemade soup.
8) Start a compost heap in your backyard under or behind a big tree. This takes no preparation whatsoever. Just start saving bits of cooking leftovers in an empty container, and then dump it behind the tree. Compost tea bags, egg shells, coffee grounds, pineapple skin, grapefruit peels, hummus, moldy grapes, spent lettuce leaves, melon rinds, strawberry tops, and so on. Do not include dairy products, eggs (except shells), fish, poultry, or meat, because these will attract rodents. Otherwise, there is nothing to worry about. I’ve been composting for 30 years and have never had a problem with rodents or any other type of animal. That’s all there is to it.
9) Eat a handful of nuts or seeds (pumpkin, sunflower) when you get hungry in the afternoon. Don’t let anyone try to convince you that breakfast bars are food.
10) Eat lunch with one or two people whose company you enjoy.
You don’t have to do all of these every day. Pick one, maybe two, and see whether you can get to them this coming week. Apply the underlying themes to other things you’d like to do. Eat food that you made yourself. Get outside and move around a little bit. Preferably both, weather permitting. Do things outdoors. Make some of your own food if you can manage. Eat more foods that have not been processed in any way, like peaches and peanuts. Keep working the program.
Remember that type 2 diabetes is not inevitable; in fact it is usually reversible. The earlier the better. We are all in this together; we all need to find more opportunities to move, to play, to walk. Finally, the news is not all bad: While you’ll want to save sugary treats for once or twice a week, remember that dark chocolate and nuts are nourishing, so they do not, therefore, count as treats.