Seattle is an exciting city with a lot to offer, including fish-tossing at Pike’s Place Market, the original Starbucks, a once futuristic looking Space Needle, and fabulous weather for people-watching in the summer. None of the usual suspects, though, were what drew me to Seattle this July; as a diabetic, what I was interested...

My father was a tough guy.  In the style of his era that meant he wore a hat with the brim slightly angled over one eye.  It meant that he favored movies starring George Raft or Humphrey Bogart, tough guys, who, like my father, smoked Camels and could hold their liquor. That was about all it took to be a tough guy, cruelty had nothing...

Two things run strong and hard on both sides of my family: heart disease and type 2 diabetes. As a deluge of medical research tells us, the two are closely linked. Often diabetes precedes heart disease, but in my family–particularly on my father’s side–it goes both ways. My dad had his first heart attack when he...

Quinoa plants near Cachora, Apurímac, Peru When I was thirteen, I spent a week in Peru.  It was, in some respects, a great trip – Machu Picchu, llamas, rafting on the Urubama River, and purchasing panchos.  I chronicled the adventure in a journal under the pen name Marcia Smith, marked it top secret, and left threatening messages...

Just a few months ago, shortly after I began to introduce solid foods to my baby Adam’s diet, I noticed a fruity smell on his breath. Almost any mother in such a situation would have said to herself, “I’ve just fed my son banana-and-apple mush, therefore, he smells fruity.” My reaction, however, was different. I leaned...

MiniMed Paradigm® REAL-Time Revel™ Insulin Pumps I do not yet have the iPhone 4. I do, however, have the diabetic’s version of the Hot New Gadget– the Minimed Revel, Medtronic’s latest insulin pump. I am very happy to be able to try out Revel temporarily, on loan from Minimed through the Paradigm Pathway Program,...

Now here’s something you wouldn’t expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself? In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola...

Inflammation is inextricably entwined with diabetes.  Usually, when we think inflammation we associate this with a sprained ankle or an infected cut.  We are, however, coming to realize that inflammation can be a much more expansive process that underlies virtually all pathologies.  Simply put, inflammation is the body’s response...

As a child with diabetes, one of the most frightening reminders of the danger of the disease was the emergency glucagon kit. Not only was it a symbol of the terrifying risk of severe hypoglycemia, it also had a giant needle.  And as I look at the kit today, which I found after digging through some drawers, I have to agree with my childhood...

In the years between early childhood and high adolescence, I spent a lot of time on my bicycle. I loved facing into a breeze with my hair blowing back, pushing off, and standing on the pedals to climb a hill and then sitting for the downward coast. At dusk the neighborhood was quiet and I could hear the adhesive zip of my tires on the...