Diabetes For Dummies. Rubin Alan L.

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      Alan L. Rubin MD

      Diabetes For Dummies

      Diabetes For Dummies®, 5th Edition

      Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

      Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

      Published simultaneously in Canada

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      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015945230

      ISBN 978-1-119-09072-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-09076-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-09077-9 (ebk)

      Introduction

      You’re reading the 5th edition of Diabetes For Dummies, and you may be wondering why another edition is necessary. The previous edition (published in 2012) had everything you needed to know to reverse the plague of diabetes, yet the problem seems to be increasing, not decreasing. Following are some of the possible explanations for this situation:

      ✔ Not enough people bought the last edition of the book.

      ✔ Even if they bought it, not enough people followed the recommendations in the book.

      ✔ Too many people aren’t even aware that this book exists.

      ✔ No book or books can stop an avalanche after the snow starts rolling downhill.

      ✔ Some new information, not available three years ago, may be able to make a major difference toward reversing diabetes, especially the information in Chapter 9.

      The real answer is actually all of the above (and probably more reasons).

      The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently suggested that as many as one in three adults in the United States will have diabetes by the year 2050. The International Diabetes Federation reports that 387 million people had diabetes in 2014 and that 552 million will have the disease by 2030 – that’s one in every ten people on the earth. In a previous edition of this book, I set this figure at 366 million by 2030, so you can see that today’s predictions are even more dire than those of four years ago. This increase is because the population is aging, minority groups who have a higher risk for diabetes are increasing, and, fortunately, people with diabetes are living longer. However, these numbers are based on past trends. The prediction will not turn out to be true if people improve their lifestyle choices through the means discussed in this book.

      Over the last decade, a large study was performed in Germany to see if lifestyle change could make a difference. Four major factors were evaluated in over 23,000 Germans. The factors were

      ✔ Never smoking

      ✔ Body-mass index less than 30

      ✔ Exercising for three and a half hours or more a week

      ✔ Following healthy dietary principles: high intake of fruits and vegetables, eating whole-grain bread, and low meat consumption

      The happy finding was that the more factors a person followed, the lower the risk of major chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. People who followed all four had a 78 percent lower risk of those diseases than people who had no healthy factor. People with three factors were a little less protected, with two a bit less and with one even less but still better than no factors at all.

      About This Book

      So much has changed in the three years since the fourth edition of Diabetes For Dummies was written that a fifth edition was clearly necessary. I need to tell you about new medicines (see Chapter 11), new glucose meters (Chapter 7), and new ideas about diet and exercise and curing diabetes with surgery (Chapters 8, 9, and 10). I also need to share new information about diabetes in children (Chapter 13) and the occupational and insurance problems of people with diabetes (Chapter 15). Just about every chapter has something new, especially (obviously) Chapter 16, which deals specifically with what’s new in diabetes care.

      A new edition also gives me the opportunity to thank the thousands of people who have thanked me for Diabetes For Dummies. You have given me a sense of enormous gratification for writing this book. You have shared your stories with me, permitting me to laugh and cry with you. One of the best is the following from Andrea in Canada:

      My 3-year-old daughter was recently diagnosed with diabetes type 1. It has been a rough time. To help us out, my brother and his wife bought us your book, Diabetes For Dummies. One day my daughter saw this bright yellow book and asked what I was reading. I told her Diabetes For Dummies. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted it. I didn’t want her to think that dummies got diabetes so I quickly added, “I am the dummy.” Without missing a beat, she then asked, “Am I the diabetes?”

      The story doesn’t just end there. The other day