Dr.
Richard K. Bernstein's Corner
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About Dr. Bernstein
 In
1946, I developed diabetes. According to statistics,
I should have been dead years ago. But today
I am in excellent health and have outlived all
but a handful of people who developed diabetes
when I did.
Twenty-seven
years ago, I had already suffered many of the
disorders long associated with diabetes, and
even my doctor, who was president of the American
Diabetes Association, could do nothing to slow
their advance.
Today the progression
of those complications has long been stopped,
and some of them have reversed. I’m healthier
now than I was then. I still have diabetes.
My body still makes no insulin, and I have to
have injections every day. How am I different
from all those who have died, and all those
whose bodies are disintegrating because of chronically
high blood sugars? I haven’t had any sort
of transplant I haven’t had any miracle
drug.
Recent research
has repeatedly demonstrated what I learned serendipitously
more than a quarter-century ago, that the grave
long-term consequences of the nation’s
third leading cause of death can be prevented
and even reversed if caught in time. How? By
keeping blood sugars normal around the clock.
Despite this
knowledge, the procedures for attaining blood
sugar normalization are only practiced at a
few research centers and by a handful of enlightened
physicians, and educators.
My book and this
column will attempt to present nearly everything
I know about blood sugar normalization, how
it can be accomplished and maintained.
With it, I hope that you will help your patients
learn to take control of their diabetes, whether
it’s Type I (juvenile-onset), as mine
is, or the much more common Type II (maturity-onset)
diabetes. To my knowledge, there is no other
book in print addressed strictly to blood sugar
control for both types of diabetes.
They also contain
much material that may be new to many physicians
and educators treating diabetes. It is my hope
that doctors and health care professionals
will use it, learn from it, and do their best
to help their patients take control of
this deadly but controllable disease.
The book, though
it contains considerable background information
on diet and nutrition, is intended primarily
as a comprehensive how-to guide to blood sugar
control, including detailed instructions on
techniques for painless insulin injection
and so on.
If, you seriously
help your patients follow the guidelines taught
in this book, you should be able to help them
avoid the discomfort of inappropriate blood
sugar swings, and perhaps be able to prevent
or reverse the development of the grave complications
long associated with chronically high blood
sugars.
Richard K Bernstein,
M.D., F.A.C.E., F.A.C.N., C.W.S.
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HOW DID THE COMMONLY PRESCRIBED HIGH-CARBOHYDRATE DIET COME ABOUT?
Frank
Vinicor, M.D., M.P.H. Director, Division
of Diabetes Translation for the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention introduces our
new series from Dr. Richard Bernstein’s
New & Revised Edition of Diabetes Solution.
