One of the first people I met eight years ago when I entered this diabetes arena was Amy Tenderich, diabetes blogger, advocate and founder of DiabetesMine, a leading informational and community web site for people with diabetes. Actually I interviewed Amy, and it was my single interview when my tape recorder didn’t work. Of course unbeknownst to me until the very end. Luckily, we have much happier memories since. Amy, who sits squarely on the front lines of diabetes advocacy, began hosting an annual design challenge...

Diet Pepsi: According to my past review of sodas, I have not yet covered the important topic of Diet Pepsi.  What a shocking oversight!  Anyway, I am taking a sip of it right now.  …Hmm.  It tastes pretty much like Diet Coke.  So, in other words, like sugar-water mixed with crushed-up aspirin, except it’s slightly sweeter than Diet Coke. I feel like I’m running out of clever words with which to describe diet sodas, and that’s a concern.  In other news, I currently work part-time at a wine store, and all I ever do is...

Ever since Galen, the Roman physician, people have trusted their health to doctors- and doctors, at least in the last century and a half, have often deserved such trust.  In antiquity it was common for  medicine and food to be variants of the same ingredient – certain spices or roots might flavor a stew, and mitigate the symptoms of an illness as well. In the modern era of manufactured pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and biological drugs, however, health via food has taken a back seat. Of course, there have been food naturalists,...

Everybody knows that if you want to see what’s in the food you buy in the grocery store, all you have to do is check the ingredients list. All foods are required to list all their ingredients, ranked by prevalence, somewhere on the label. Therefore, if you want to get a rough sense of how much high fructose corn syrup is in your breakfast cereal, or how much sugar is in your pasta sauce, all you have to do is glance at the ingredients. If sugar or HFCS is one of the top three or four ingredients on the list, then you...

A few weeks ago, I woke up at 3 a.m. with excruciating chest, arm, neck, and back pain.  It was the kind of pain that resembled everything I’d ever read or heard about the pain which precedes a heart attack. I don’t know what the typical response is for a man who senses that he’s experiencing a cardiac emergency, but my response was probably a textbook example of what not to do: I stayed in bed and let my thoughts run wild. This can’t be a heart attack. I’m not breaking out in a cold sweat. I’m a healthy...

credit: © RD / Kabik / Retna Digital Oh, Dr. Oz, what has happened that you are adding to the myths of diabetes? For you to say, “Type 1 is also called juvenile diabetes and you are born with it” here on the HuffPost? Type 1 has not been called juvenile diabetes for years, says pediatric endocrinologist Francine Kaufman in her book, Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America, and much more important, you are not necessarily born with it. According to the International Diabetes Federation “The...

People who drink more soft drinks are more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, claims a new study from Singapore.  The researchers followed about 60,000 people for around a decade, and found that those who consumed more soft drinks–around 5 drinks per week–were 85 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who abstain from soft drinks. It might seem surprising that a non-radioactive, tobacco-less, industrial waste-free product could cause cancer.  Sure, it makes you fat and gives you cavities, but cancer? ...

Bridget McNulty is a South African writer and journalist, and a Type 1 diabetic. Her first novel, Strange Nervous Laughter, was published in South Africa in 2007 and released in the USA in May 2009. She has written articles for a number of South African magazines, including ELLE, Real Simple, the Oprah magazine, Psychologies and Woman & Home, and frequently writes about diabetes. In 2008 she was voted one of Cosmopolitan magazine’s Awesome Women, an award extended to 30 South African women who are making a difference in their...

My friend Betsy and I weren’t looking for redemption — we’re grownups who work hard to make the world better than we found it, take both vitamins and good advice, and are not given to debauchery — and yet we found it. At a restaurant. Grezzo, a warm and intimate place in Boston’s foodie and famous North End, specializes in raw food cuisine. It’s no salad bar, however. On a cold February night, we sampled the chef’s lively tasting menu that featured Mushroom Tea Soup, Gnocchi Carbonara, Greek...

Kris Freeman is the reigning US National cross-country ski champion, currently competing as a part of the US Ski Team in the 2010 Olympic Games .  Kris was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2000, before his first Winter Olympics in 2002. He also competed in the 2006 Winter Olympics. What sets Kris apart from others with type 1 diabetes is that he competes in endurance sports: the 15 kilometer freestyle cross-country (XC) race lasts about 45 minutes. Kris will also compete in the 30k pursuit race, the 50k mass start classic, and the...