JohnWalsh_1

“Even those without diabetes will wish they had it just so they can use this book. Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes is written by two great authors espousing a positive and practical approach to better health. This book allows even the mathematically inept to understand their lab values and what area of their health is most important to work on. Targets for the five critical areas: A1c, blood pressure, lipids, microalbumin, and the eye exam, how to achieve them, and what order is most important to work on are presented.”

— John Walsh, PA, CDE, and Ruth  Roberts, MA, authors of Pumping Insulin and Using Insulin

So you all know we've been working on a "mystery book" for a while.  Well, it's time for the wrapper to come off! Even though the publication date is still a few months off.

I've been privileged to co-author this book with Dr. Richard Jackson of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.  We're calling it the "first-ever, hands-on guide to achieving a long and healthy life with diabetes." It actually tells people in plain language what they need to do to get a handle on their own personal key health risks. 

In essence, this book is meant to address the great number of people with Type 2 diabetes who might not have access to the best information or care.  But this do-it-yourself guide can be useful for all of us, who often neglect to get our test results regularly or do anything about the numbers even when we know them.  The book also includes very useful chapters (in my no-BS style) on exercise, food, traveling with diabetes, how to scour the Internet, foot and mouth care, complementary and alternative medicine, the newest diabetes devices and more.

Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes will appear in book stores in January 2007.

Click here to reserve your copy now.

Five Essential Health Factors You Can

Master to Enjoy a Long and Healthy Life

This book can help

From our initial book brochure:

The first-ever guide to 5 crucial tests that everyone living with diabetes needs to have and monitor on a regular basis—by an MD at Joslin and Harvard Medical School and a diabetes patient-expert.

Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard University professor Dr. Richard Jackson and diabetes patient-expert and blogger/journalist Amy Tenderich walk readers through how to:

    * understand each of these factors
    * determine which are the most important for you to focus on (based on your family history and other risk factors)
    * create a personalized treatment plan for optimum blood-glucose control, heart health, and general diabetes management and well-being.

This is a path-breaking book that will be required reading for every single person with diabetes aspiring to manage his or her condition as successfully and fully as possible.

Five tests are the cornerstones for monitoring one’s diabetes and developing a daily management plan—yet few of the more than 21 million people in the US living with diabetes know their results on all five of these. In April 2006 USA Today reported that just under 42% of adults with diabetes had had these tests.

The five factors are:

    * A1c
    * Blood pressure
    * Lipids (HDL, LDL, triglycerides)
    * Microalbumin
    * Yearly eye exam

“Often people focus on the stuff they feel guilty about (usually weight or food), when that may not even be their most critical health issue.

“What people don’t usually do is get the hard facts on where they stand in terms of their own diabetes health risks. They either haven’t had the five essential diabetes health tests, or they have no idea what the results are or what they might mean. But these five tests — your A1c, blood pressure, lipids, microalbumin and eye exam — provide the essential information you need to understand and manage your own health with diabetes.”                     — from the Preface