Type 1 Diabetes Blog

While this blog is dedicated to health, every once in a while politics try and creep into life saving and the development of technologies that hold promise to save lives. Such is the recent case, with George W. Bush vetoing the recent stem cell bill that has passed both house and senate. It basically proves that Bush is just completely out of line with America and in his own little morally run world.

I have heard several of his speeches that relate to the stem cell “debate”. He is basically holding back all funding for stem cells, which is making the entire industry cautious to invest. Capital won’t flow into the Stem Cell industry with someone like Bush in office. It is too risky. It might be outlawed and there is no federal money there to increase the feasibility. And so America falls woefully behind so Bush can save his little clumps of cells and so he can appeal to his demographic which is thankfully dwindling. His approval rating is hitting all time lows and he is going to slink out of office in a couple years so that someone can come in and reverse his stem cell decisions. And I can’t wait.

So here is the Bush challenge. I challenge Mr. Bush to go in front of a couple Juvenile Diabetics and tell them that they will have to suffer and live with the consequences of this awful disease, not to mention the financial burden, so that some clumps of cells don’t come into existence that scientists can study. Clumps of cells! And we would rather have clumps of cells alive rather than to have cures for diseases. Horray Mr Bush! You saved some cells diseases!

PR Newswire today has an interesting read about a study recently done that shows how 80 Billion dollars of the federal governments money goes to treat people with diabetes. The staggering number shows just how large of a scourge is afoot.

There are approximately 20 million diabetics in the united states and that number is supposed to double by 2025. The cost of diabetes is certainly not going to go down if no steps are taken to change the system.

Again I think this is where some alternative treatments could bring that cost down. If people were not just prescribed drugs to lower cholesterol, blood pressure, etc and were instead given a personal trainer and some vitamins/supplements I think the associated health risks for diabetes related problems would drop and the diabetes related spending as well. The thinking needs to shift away from allowing people to think pills will solve their problem, away from spending monies on finding a “cure” (at least for type 2 diabetics. It is still worthwhile to find a cure for type 1,  it is an autoimmune disease), and move towards finding ways to get people motivated, healthy and interested in taking steps to reduce side effects of diabetes.

I wish doctors would prescribe personal trainers and salads as opposed to Avandia.