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Latest Letters to the Editor Articles
Letters to the Editor Article Archives
October 2009
In our June/July 2009 issue, we published a letter from reader Sheila Payne, who wrote that we had been far too positive about continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in our June/July article Get the Facts on Continuous Glucose Monitoring. Her letter provoked a stack of letters from people who believe that the benefits of CGM substantially outweigh its negatives. To let you in on the debate, we are reprinting Ms. Payne's thought-provoking letter here, followed by two equally thoughtful responses from readers.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2009
August 2009
February 2009
Dear Editor,
You are right when you wrote that CDE's were becoming an endangered species, but were you aware that the National Certification Board for Diabetes Educators (NCBDE) is part of the problem?
11 comments - Posted Feb 19, 2009
November 2008
Dear Laura,
I just finished viewing your clip online. You seem like a very intelligent and involved mom who decided it was time to take charge. I applaud you, and I agree with many points you make, but I disagree with your position on food.
11 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2008
October 2008
I read with interest the article by Cynthia Heinz in which she spoke to her local school board, describing a worst case scenario for a child with severe hypoglycemia. As a veteran parent with 15 years of dealing with diabetes in our local public school, I have a few things to add to the discussion.
9 comments - Posted Oct 27, 2008
July 2008
Dear Editor,
I felt I needed to write you because of all the press you do on Nick Jonas. I am the mother of a nine-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with type 1 five months ago. I won't describe the horrendous day we found out, but I want to say that I did not want any of the doctors or nurses to say the word “diabetes.” I was so fearful that my daughter would completely fall apart (even more than she already had). I knew she knew what diabetes was because she is a huge fan of Nick Jonas.
101 comments - Posted Jul 17, 2008
June 2008
Dear Editor:
A few weeks ago, I was reading in bed at around one o’clock in the morning. I got up to administer my twice-daily Lantus dose and a small amount of Humalog to "cover" the carbs I'd consumed about an hour earlier.
1 comment - Posted Jun 26, 2008
Dear Editor,
Sometimes the personal challenges we confront lead us to recognize value and opportunities we had not discovered before. That has been my recent experience, and that’s why I am especially proud to be a member of the Phoenix legal community.
3 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2008
Dear Diabetes Health,
After reading the story in the April/May Diabetes Health about the mother and daughter who won approval from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to pay for the continuous monitor, I wanted to share our story.
5 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2008
May 2008
Editor's Note: This week's letter is from Joan Hoover, one of our favorite and most outspoken board members. Joan is also our patient advocate advisor. She is a tireless diabetes educator and advocate for people's access to clear, accurate, and unbiased information about the disease. When Joan speaks, we sit up and listen! Her letter is addressed to Editor-in-Chief Scott King and Diabetes Health pharmacy advisory board member R. Keith Campbell. Campbell had commented favorably on news that a doctor had successfully treated obesity in children by prescribing amphetamines.
7 comments - Posted May 22, 2008
Dear Editor, I am a medical student in the M.D. program at Oregon Health and Sciences University and a type 1 diabetic of almost 10 years. I use a Medtronic pump and I also use their continuous glucose monitoring system (Paradigm Real-Time).
34 comments - Posted May 22, 2008
"Insulin Quiz: Are You Smarter Than a Doctor" (April-May '08, pp 12-15) was an excellent article, if perhaps a little frightening. I couldn't help but wonder how well the parents of diabetic children would do on the quiz, and where they might have learned their lessons.
6 comments - Posted May 8, 2008
April 2008
Carol Whitton of Coral Springs, Florida, discovered that her blood sugar often increased sharply after she drank a diet soda while dining in a restaurant. So she started to test her diet drinks for sugar, a practice she learned from watching the “Living With Diabetes” television program.
29 comments - Posted Apr 28, 2008
Hi, Keith,
One of our most popular articles right now is about the many, many folks who accidentally mix up their insulin bottles and take a huge dose of fast-acting insulin by mistake, thinking they are taking long-acting. (See the article and the 22 reader comments here.)
10 comments - Posted Apr 28, 2008
The FDA has cleared the OneTouch UltraLink wireless meter as the only meter certified by Medtronic to wirelessly communicate with its diabetes management products in the United States. The meter uses Medtronic-certified wireless technology to transmit glucose readings directly to MiniMed Paradigm insulin pumps and the Guardian® REAL-Time continuous glucose monitoring system. This makes bolus dosing more accurate and easier for patients compared to the manual entry of blood glucose readings.
8 comments - Posted Apr 28, 2008
Does Low-Carb Cheat Young Children of Their Needs?
KheurserRD wrote us to say, “From a dietitian's perspective, 30 grams of carbs doesn't allow for much. It would not allow for the recommended amounts of milk/milk equivalents or fruit a child needs. Not to mention the lack of fiber. Whatever happened to balance, portion control, physical activity, and eating within your calorie needs? ...If such extreme restrictions are being made, how can very young children meet their requirements for calcium and other vitamins and minerals present in milk or fruit and some carbohydrate-containing vegetables? Were these children monitored for nutritional deficiencies, or have the long-term effects of such a diet been studied when the diet was started at such a young age? Even if there are no recommendations for fiber, diets rich in fiber are associated with the prevention of many diseases.”
6 comments - Posted Apr 28, 2008
We’d like to invite diabetes professionals, persons with diabetes (and the people who love and help them) to contribute articles to Diabetes Health.
0 comments - Posted Apr 21, 2008
Hi, Mr. King: Thanks so much for Diabetes Health. Being a type 1 diabetic, I have benefited from many of its articles. I would like to tell you a story concerning my daughter, Morgan, and say what an inspiration Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers is. Morgan is 12-½ years old and a huge Jonas Brothers fan! Of course she and her friends wanted tickets for the Louisville Palace show in February. A few of her friends’ mothers went and stood in line on the cold morning that the lottery tickets went on sale.
53 comments - Posted Apr 10, 2008
Editor: I’m writing in regard to an article in Diabetes Health (Feb/March 2008) on page 27 about help in avoiding near-fatal mistakes taking insulin. To read the original article, go here.
9 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2008
March 2008
Editor:
My son was diagnosed in August 2007 with juvenile diabetes. I am a registered nurse and was devastated by the diagnosis because I was just completely paralyzed by the fear of potential complications. It was also a tremendous shock to be on the other side of health care – receiving information from hurried staff, including doctors, glancing at their watches while I asked one too many questions.
28 comments - Posted Mar 21, 2008
I am a diabetic and was taking four insulin shots per day and still had problems with my sugar. I did two months of research on the Web because I had to find a way to get off the shots. I hate needles I was astonished at what I found on natural herbs!
38 comments - Posted Mar 19, 2008
One of the cartoons you recently published, where a character eats chocolate because his sugar is too low, gave the wrong message. Chocolate should not be used for treating hypoglycemia. There is too much fat in it for it to be effective.
10 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2008
February 2008
Until August 2006, I was a healthy 44-year-old female with no family history of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes has been so difficult, not because of the shots or management - although it is incredibly time-consuming to take care of yourself.
66 comments - Posted Feb 23, 2008
My son Nathan is a 17-year-old diabetic surfer. We live in France. I'm planning to send him one month this summer to surfing places in the U.S., either on the East Coast or California.
0 comments - Posted Feb 6, 2008
January 2008
Editor: I am an enthusiastic reader of your magazine. I appreciate the number of times you have tackled some of the bigger questions of diabetes management that others have ignored.
31 comments - Posted Jan 23, 2008
December 2007
I am writing to share my experience with a low carbohydrate diet tailored to meet our needs as vegetarians. We have two people with type 1 diabetes in our family, and we have been vegetarians for over fifteen years.
7 comments - Posted Dec 26, 2007
For more than fifty years, I have been a type 1 diabetic. I am writing to bring attention to the fact that huge amounts of insulin are wasted due to the insulin packaging practices of the pharmaceutical industry.
39 comments - Posted Dec 11, 2007
July 2007
Q: My mother, who is a "brittle diabetic," has been sent to a skilled nursing facility for two weeks of rehabilitation following a seven-week hospital stay. I am amazed and frightened at the lack of concern for and attention to her diabetes care at the nursing home.
1 comment - Posted Jul 3, 2007
May 2007
A type 1 diabetic, 21 years old, pedals a bicycle for nine straight days, nine hundred miles from Tecumseh, Michigan, to Grand Island, Nebraska.
0 comments - Posted May 24, 2007
Regarding your article on the Banting Homestead ("Historic Homestead of Insulin Discoverer May Become Housing Development"), I would like to point out a number of facts that have not received sufficient attention.
0 comments - Posted May 24, 2007
April 2007
I read with interest Scott”s recent column (“Starting the Conversation”) in which he described eating all the ice cream. Having spent 36 years as a type 1, and now almost seven years cured after a kidney/pancreas transplant (KPTX), I have a unique perspective.
1 comment - Posted Apr 10, 2007
To be a cancer surviving athlete is to be admired. That has not been the case for me as a diabetic athlete. There has never been a special finish line acknowledging the courage, perseverance, and sheer determination it takes to live with diabetes and be out on that course riding, running, or walking. I want this to change.
0 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2007
I was really pleased to see the article about Andy Bell, (“Buffed Into Health”). I am a sociology professor at William Woods University and have forwarded this article to the nurse on campus, as well as to the Human Performance Department.
0 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2007
In the article about diabetes in birds (“Treating Diabetes In Birds”), the question about blindness caught my attention. Our budgie has diabetes symptoms: continuous thirst, heavy urination, chubby body, and can't fly anymore. He has become partially blind.
1 comment - Posted Apr 9, 2007
February 2007
Great article on Adam Morrison (“Adam Morrison Above the Rim with Basketball and Diabetes Control”). I am a pediatric diabetes educator. I’ve printed the article and distributed it to a couple of difficult patients who are basketball fanatics, and I intend to keep it on hand for future use.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
Death Valley is hardly a common place to be raising awareness of diabetes. This past fall, however, several hundred people with diabetes, healthcare professionals, and other bicyclists passionate about improving diabetes care rode 105 miles at upwards of 90 degrees to raise money for diabetes research in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) “Ride to Cure Diabetes 2006.”
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 11 months old, and I have struggled for almost 46 years to keep control of it. With diabetes, you never get a break.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
December 2006
Biggest Gripe Is That There Will Never Be a Cure
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2006
October 2006
I wish to raise awareness about and concern for dental problems that might be complicated by the new Exubera therapy and other therapies employing the dry powder inhaler (DPI) technology as a means of administering therapeutic medications.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
Diabetes Cure May Reside in Adult Stem Cell Research
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
August 2005
July 2005
This is another letter in response to Scott King’s column that ran in the February 2005 issue (“Random Shots”).
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2005
The article "High Fructose Corn Syrup: Is This Disguised Sugar Affecting Your Diabetes?"(May 2005) unfortunately suggests that food manufacturers are misusing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a natural, home-grown sweetener from Midwest corn fields.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2005
June 2005
May 2005
A1C Author Did Not Prepare or Endorse A1C Chart
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
October 2004
Many Other Healthy Lifestyle Centers for People with Diabetes
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2004
May 2003
Thanks for the Type 1.5 Article. I just received my February 2003 issue of Diabetes Health and was pleased and excited to read the article "What's Your Type? Diabetes Isn't Always Easy to Classify" (p. 40).
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
April 2003
March 2003
In Defense of Non-Western Medicine. I was disappointed with Ron Zacker's editorial in the December 2002 issue ("Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," p. 46). It seemed that Zacker lost sight of the prize with his statement, "Too much information and too many options can distract us from what's really important."
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
I Developed Type 2 Diabetes From Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
When Will Medicare Cover the Cost of Insulin Pumps for Type 2s?
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2002
December 2001
Correction: In the Letters to the Editor of the November issue (p. 61), we made an incorrect statement about the use of Lantus. The sentence should read "..those who take three meal-time shots of short-acting insulin plus basal Lantus will take four shots of insulin a day." We apologize for this error.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
Stomach Stapling Not a Cure for Type 2 Diabetes
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
June 2001
May 2001
January 2001
July 2000
June 2000
Diabetes Camp-The Best Thing to Happen to My Son
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
May 2000
April 2000
I thought Daniel Trecroci's foot care feature in the February issue ("Does the Shoe Fit? Important New Products for the Diabetic Foot") was very well written and organized. It is always good to express opinions from a variety of specialties.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2000
March 2000
February 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
Doctors Say "Noncompliant" is an Irrelevant Term
1 comment - Posted Sep 1, 1999
August 1999
July 1999
Visually Impaired Need Braille on Insulin Vials
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
June 1999
NutraSweet Manufacturer: Beware Internet Rumors, Not Us
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
May 1999
Readers Sweet On Aspartame Article but ADA Sour
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
April 1999
Readers Desperate to Hang On to Animal Insulin
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
March 1999
February 1999
Dear Scott King-From Ann Landers - Many thanks for your letter and the excerpts from emails sent by your readers in response to my column on diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1999
January 1999
When I read the letter from Katherine Smith of Wood River, Illinois ["Stop Covering Type 2 Diabetes"], I immediately felt that this woman needed to be properly informed. Diabetes, no matter what type, cannot be cured, and any research in the field of diabetes is beneficial to all.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
January 1998
December 1997
Health Care Professional Calls to Save Insulin
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
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April 1997
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February 1997
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
June 1996
Reviewed by Bruce W. Bode, MD
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1996
May 1996
April 1996
March 1996
February 1996
Troglitazone is a new insulin-action enhancer currently in the third phase of clinical testing. Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research has announced that a pilot study at St. Joseph Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., showed that the drug lowers blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. The study also found that the drug can help reduce and even eliminate daily insulin injections in type 2 diabetics.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1996
January 1996
The Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Administration Medical Center in Virginia published a report in the May 1995 American Journal of Hypertension about the use of tolazamide as an alternative to insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
December 1995
November 1995
October 1995
Glucose Meter Debate!
The following letters are from our new internet users group. Join us at diabetes@netcom.com.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1995
July 1995
June 1995
Reader Disappointed with DI, Says We've Lost Our "Enthusiasm"
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1995
May 1995
April 1995
March 1995
January 1995
December 1994
November 1994
October 1994
August 1994
July 1994
June 1994
January 1994
August 1993
June 1993
April 1993
March 1993
This month we devote our entire "letters to the editor" column to one letter. Also presented is an answer from a member of our medical advisory board.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1993