There Are No Simple Problems

Here is the thing: having a proper diet, along with exercise, will reduce the likelihood of becoming diabetic.

Ozempic has become the “miracle cure” to too many people. It has its place but it should not be a replacement to a healthy diet. https://t.co/cWboFDG7nI

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 29, 2024

But there are simple minds.

My mother was diabetic from early in her adult life. She controlled it with diet for decades, and only late in life had to rely on insulin. By her last years, she had to test her blood and take insulin shots four times a day.

Diet wasn’t going to cure her then, though she still had to eat carefully. Then again, diet never cured her. It just kept her from needing insulin until it couldn’t do that anymore.

I don’t know of a cure for diabetes, except avoiding it as much as you can. I’ve been told for years now I’m on the verge of diabetes (my grandmother was diabetic as well, as were my mother’s sisters). I keep it at bay, but I regard it like alcoholism: if you have it, you’re never cured. You just control it as best you can.

(Apparently Ozempic is for weight loss. My mother never had a weight problem. Diabetes is not dependent on weight, per se. Then again, there’s “type 2” and “type 1,” and I don’t know the difference. It is, in other words, a complex subject, and simple answers are usually stupid answers.)

(In the last months of her life I understood my   mother’s diabetic condition better than anyone, including and especially the ER doctors she saw repeatedly. (Senior housing facilities default to the ambulance/ER; understandably, but that can make the situation worse. However, it moves the situation elsewhere, which is all they care about. Again: understandably.) Every ER visit broke the cycle of her insulin/diet regimen, and I alone understood that problem and the consequences (it could take two weeks to recover from one day in ER). The last visit she had (she died of complications days after), I pleaded with everyone I could to get help for her. No chance. I wasn’t, after all, a doctor.

So many of our problems arise from communication, and the inability to receive information.)