Diabetes for Dummies

by: Alan L. Rubin

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Editorial Reviews: "The Greeks and Romans knew about diabetes. Fortunately, the way they tested for the condition--by tasting the urine--has gone by the wayside." Diabetes for Dummies has the friendly, quirky style you expect from all the For Dummies books, but this is no skim-the-surface Diabetes 101. Rubin has packed this book with useful information, peppered with warm advice for enjoying your life while living with diabetes. One of his points is that although you'd rather not have this disease, you're lucky to have it now instead of a few decades ago, because today you can manage diabetes and live a productive, quality-filled life. The book is divided into sections on "Dealing with the Onset of Diabetes," "How Diabetes Affects Your Body," "Managing Diabetes: The 'Thriving with Diabetes' Lifestyle Plan," and "Special Considerations for Living with Diabetes." Each chapter is packed with facts and strategies on topics such as monitoring, battling complications, medications, diet, and exercise. If you skim, it's an introduction to diabetes; if you read it carefully, it's a textbook. Web surfers will appreciate the "Dr. W.W. Web" appendix, where Rubin lists many useful diabetes Web sites. (If you'd rather click than type, you can visit Rubin's Web site, where he offers links to all the diabetes sites.) Also included is a mini-cookbook of multiethnic recipes from noted restaurants, mostly in San Francisco (with the restaurant address, in case you want to order instead of cook).

A Diabetic's Best Resource and Companion: The newly diagnosed diabetic often feels as if he or she had been plunked down in front of a circus tent, complete with three rings, sideshows, barkers, and scary clowns, only then to be told "okay, pal, start making choices!" Many patients flee. Others roam around frightened and vulnerable. Dr. Rubin, however, clearly, calmly, and intelligently guides the patient in this book through the chaos and confusion of the diabetes care circus. He really makes sense out of what is available. The book is unfailingly clear. I was also impressed with his anecdotes, drawn from his practice, about the emotional experiences of his patients, and with his tips on how to cope with setbacks, glitches, and successes. Many books on diabetes lecture the patient. In this book, diabetics will find a physician-author who does not lecture and who is not afraid to evaluate treatments and approaches. He seems intent on helping diabetics, and their families and caregivers, return to wonderful lives. Get your physician to read it too.

My review: I can't tell you how many times I've recently accessed the new Diabetes For Dummies, by Alan L. Rubin, MD. Don't let the title put you off, it's one of the best guides to diabetes management I've read. From causes, symptoms, and side effects to treatments, diet and exercise--this book delivers! Parents may be interested to know that there's even a chapter on managing a baby or preschooler with diabetes. Dr. Rubin is way ahead of the headlines, as he's even included dealing with obesity and type 2 diabetes in children in this book. Being a "checklist" type of person, I like the way this book is laid out, highlighting and summarizing important points in each area, along with chapter references for expanded information on the topic at hand. For example, one short checklist identifies six things you should be able to do if your child is controlling his diabetes with insulin: 1. Identify the signs and symptoms of hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis (with chapter reference) 2. Administer insulin (with chapter reference) 3. Measure the blood glucose and urine ketones (with chapter reference) 4. Treat hypoglycemia with food or glucagon (with chapter reference) 5. Feed your diabetic child (with chapter reference) 6. Know what to do when your child is sick with another childhood illness (with chapter reference). Diabetes For Dummies is a book you can pick up and read from chapter to chapter, or use as a reference source to answer your questions. The index is very complete and the Appendixes include a mini-cookbook (my type of book!), diabetic exchange lists, website references (even including one for animals with diabetes) and a good glossary of terms. I would give Diabetes For Dummies a five-star rating.

Reviews:

BOOK REVIEW: The "praise" page of Diabetes for Dummies reads, "As one of the country's leading endocrinologists, Alan Rubin could be expected to know a lot about diabetes. But the surprising thing about his new book is how well he says it, and his support of the glycemic index shows in particular that he is current with the latest thinking on how to deal with diabetes." This blurb summarizes the way I feel about the book because I wrote the blurb after reading unbound galley proofs. Dr. Rubin does bring impeccable credentials to writing this important new book about diabetes. For the past quarter of a century he has been in private practice in endocrinology and metabolism in San Francisco. During that period he has also taught at the University of California Medical Center. However, few experts on diabetes can communicate their knowledge as well as Dr. Rubin has. Two who come to mind June Biermann and Barbara Toohey, the editors-in-chief of DiabetesWebSite.com share my enthusiasm for Dr. Rubin's book. In their own blurb for the book, they write, "This lively and lucid tell-it-all guide will provide you with the information you need to leap from the valley of diabetes ignorance to the peaks of understanding." That this book is intended as a reference makes its readability even more exceptional. Dr. Rubin notes that he doesn't expect us to read it all the way through like a novel, although that's what I found myself doing. Dr. Rubin covers all the bases about diabetes, but what found me saying "yes" to myself the most was his chapter on Diabetes Diet Plan. He faces up to the biggest issue. "If there were a more controversial area in nutrition for the diabetic person than carbohydrates, I would like to know about it," Dr. Rubin writes. "You are free to disagree with me and use whatever level of carbohydrate you like as long as it helps to promote a lower blood glucose without increasing blood fats or weight." Likewise, he recognizes that "all carbohydrates are not alike in the degree to which they raise the blood glucose." The glycemic index was created to quantify these differences. If only all endocrinologists could be that open-minded. Whether you have just been diagnosed or have an M.D., here's one of the first books about diabetes to buy and read. Yes, it takes humility to admit that you are a dummy. But as June and Barbara say in their blurb, "When it comes to diabetes, almost everyone is a dummy, including, alas, a number of health care professionals." Dr. Rubin, fortunately, is not one of them.

If You Love Someone Who Has Diabetes Buy Them The Book!: This is by far one of the better books I ever read on Diabetes and related symptoms and conditions. It is organize in an easy to read manner, provides checklists, promotes good health, and explains why you must control your diabetes before it hurts you. However, few people ever read an entire book because they find it boring or confusing. So, you need to enroll in Diabetes Educational Classes offer at every medical center or hospital. You will learn how to understand and mange your diabetes within days. Also, one thing that all researchers agree that cuts across all races and cultures for anyone who has diabetes, you must walk at least 30+ minutes a day. You will be amazed how this will show immediate results and make you feel better. I know you will find it cumbersome and burdensome at first, but when you see that your excessive thirst goes Away, or your medication is reduced and you sleep better you will want to walk all the time. I suggest you get an AM/FM Radio headphone radio that has push buttons to change channels. In this way, you will enjoy listening to Talk Radio; National Public Radio, Sports or Music and you will walk even farther without any effort. The hardest thing about walking is starting to do it every day. Once you start you, will never stop and if you can get up to 3 to 4 miles a day or over an hour, you will feel terrific even with diabetes. If you walk early in the morning or early evening, it is beautiful to see the sunrise or sunset. Additionally, be sure to keep you feet clean, dry, and put powder on them using clean socks each time. Purchase "New Balance Tennis Shoes," and make sure they are at least half inch bigger than your feet. One company called San Antonio Shoes, (SAS), actually makes comfortable formal shoes for diabetics to wear too. In this way, your feet will be comfortable as you walk. Moreover, in time you will learn to adjust to your diet. You can often eat what you want, but only in portions as the book points out. This book outlines this area but every diabetic is different and you have to adjust to what works for you. If you care about anyone with diabetes, get him or her this book. Once you take classes, read this book, start walking, and watching your diet, you will understand that you can control your diabetes so it does not control you. Dr. Rueben has done a terrific job by writing this book and you will never know it until you read it!

Excellent review of the subject: An epidemic of Diabetes is sweeping across the world and South Asians who adopt a modern diet are developing the disease at especially high rates. While no one has yet found a cure for diabetes, there have been great advances in the management of the disease. A diabetic who truly understands his disease and correctly uses all the tools available to manage it can expect decades of good health. On the other hand, poorly managed diabetes will soon lead to complications that range from amputations and infections to blindness, kidney failure and heart disease. As millions of people develop diabetes, there is no way any society can provide enough doctors to manage their disease on a day to day basis. It thus becomes essential that the patients and their caretakers learn enough about the disease to be able to take most of the responsibility for their own care. This has led to an explosion of self help books for diabetics and Dr. Rubin's "Diabetes for dummies" is one of the best in the field. The editors of the "Dummies" series made an inspired choice when they asked Dr. Rubin to write this book. While Dr. Rubin is a very well known diabetologist with solid scientific credentials, he is not an academic who spends more time on research than he does seeing real patients. Rather, he is primarily a clinician, with decades of practical experience managing thousands of diabetics. This perspective helped him write a book that is focused first and foremost on being practically useful. The book is easy to read and understand and the reader needs no prior scientific knowledge to follow it. The book begins with an account of how a typical person reacts to the diagnosis of diabetes. After some practical advice on dealing with the initial shock and dismay, Dr. Rubin explains what diabetes is and what we know about its causes. The only weakness in the book may be the fact that he tries to explain all the different types of diabetes (type 1 is what children usually get, type 2 is the more common adult type and gestational diabetes is seen in pregnant women) and this may unnecessarily confuse some of his readers. Since most of the target audience will have type 2 diabetes (it is at least 10 times more common than type 1, its increasing even faster, and it's the kind overweight adults usually get) he might have done better to focus purely on type 2 and write a separate book for the type 1 diabetics. Still, this is not a serious problem and with a little bit of effort any reader should be able to focus on the parts of the book which are most relevant to his or her problem. After explaining what diabetes is and what it can do to you, he comes to the most useful part of the book: how to manage your diabetes. The advice is up to date, practical and served up with wit and humor. The reader will learn all about the importance of testing your own blood sugar every single day (an occasional test at your doctors office is practically useless) and how to keep it in the acceptable range. All the complications of diabetes can be slowed or even prevented altogether if glucose is tightly controlled. Starting with diet and exercise and moving on to pills and insulin shots, the tools to control your sugar are out there and Dr. Rubin explains each of them in detail. Once you read the book, you will easily know more than most doctors know about this stuff. And you should! It's your health; the era when doctors behaved like God and the patient was little more than the passive recipient of care he could never hope to comprehend is well and truly past. Patients need to take more and more responsibility for their own care and books like this are exactly what they need to make informed decisions about their health. The book includes a section on what doesn't work (unfortunately, the quack remedies mentioned are mostly the ones being advertised in the US, the Pakistani reader will have to evaluate his local quacks on his own) and what may be available in the future. There is a cookbook at the end, but the recipes are mostly American and may be less useful in [Asia]. There is also a very nice list of websites where even more information is available. In short, a very useful book and a must for every person who has diabetes or cares for a diabetic. While it is obviously intended for an American audience, the information is universally useful and is needed even more in a country where access to quality healthcare is so problematic.

Read this so that you can help your endocrinologist: After my primary care physician diagnosed my diabetes, I was referred to an endocrinologist. With a month between diagnosis and that appointment, I started reading on the Internet and looking for good books. I picked up one that I'd bought months earlier about preventing diabetes, then bought "Dummies" for it's nuts-and-bolts information for someone already diagnosed. I agree with the other reviewer, that the type I and type II info is somewhat scrambled together. And I wish there were information on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, but those are the only two negatives I've found. I read 2/3s of the book before meeting with my endocrinologist. I knew what we'd be discussing at the appointment. I knew that if I tested more than the 3 times that the pcp had recommended that I'd have solid data on how I was doing. I already knew the vocabulary, knew what the A1c test would tell us, etc. This gave us more time to talk about my future care and, most importantly, I had a list of questions that he could answer. Now I'm trying to decide if I should buy one for my mother who is also having some problems with her glucose levels. I was planning on giving her my copy when I'd finished it, but I'm thinking of holding on to it.

Great book if you have or know someone who has diabetes: I was looking for a book that gives a good overview of all aspects of diabetes, and this book satisfied that goal. The book covers both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The first part of the book talks about the onset of the disease: the psychological reactions, what a diagnosis of diabetes means ("it's the glucose"), and the two types of diabetes. I found particularly interesting the list of famous people who had diabetes, including Thomas Edison and Elvis Presley. The second part of the book discusses the complications of the disease and their treatment. The author claims he did not intend to frighten the reader, and he does give you practical steps you can take to deal with and even prevent the problems. The third part talks about lifestyle changes, including glucose monitoring and other tests, nutrition, exercise, and medication. Chapter 11, "Diabetes Is Your Show," really didn't work for me. It tries to make an analogy between diabetes care and the cast and crew of a stage show--but it seemed terribly contrived. The fourth part covers special issues: diabetes and children, diabetes and the elderly, insurance and job issues, advances in diabetes care, and bogus treatments. Overall, the book was interesting; even the lists of drugs and their characteristics was probably as interesting as it could be. The book provides both background information and practical advice. The orientation of the book is very positive, focusing on how you can take control of the disease. I especially like this quote: "Is it possible that you could be healthier with diabetes than your friends who do not have diabetes? ...the answer to that question is yes."