MARY TYLER MOORE & DIABETES

I recently picked up the newly released book, Growing Up Again: Life, Loves and Oh Yeah Diabetes, written by Mary Tyler Moore, who is the international chairwoman of  JDRF  (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation).

Within the book, I found Ms. Moore’s anecdotal stories fascinating, her work with children and their families admirable and her advise inspiring and instructional.

The well researched diabetes information and statistics in the appendixes most educational. For example:

“There is a noticeable increase in the number of very young children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Various studies confirmed these trends: The incidence of Type 1 is increasing in Finland, England, Norway, Israel, Austria and several other countries. Here in the United States it is also on the rise… in Colorado between 1978 and 2004 the incidence of Type 1 diabetes increased by 2.3% a year.”

“Professor Francine Kaufman, M.D., head of the Center for Diabetes, Endrocrinology, and Metabolism at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles , has said, “Type 2 diabetes has been described as a new epidemic in the American pediatric population…It particularly targets the African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian populations and seems to be due to a combination of insulin resistance and beta cell failure…Among these children, the risk of developing serious diabetes related complications, heart disease, and other physical problems is alarming- striking earlier and more severely than has seen before… obesity is the most significant risk factor.”

In the Acknowledgments, Ms. Moore acknowledged our mutual friend, Karen Brownlee, National Director, Advertising and Promotion for JDRF, who has also shown me great kindness, encouragement and support.

As many of you know, I donate 10% of the royalties from the sale ofWhat Color Is Your Brain? to JDRF, which is our family’s “charity ofchoice,”  because ourson, Joshua, who has had Type 1 diabetes since 1985 and my father (ofblessed memory) who had Type 2 diabetes.