I believe it should be a requirement to test all children for type 1 diabetes during every ER visit for a sick child and at every annual exam. It’s a simple finger prick test that could save countless lives. Early detection is crucial, and too often, children are diagnosed only after they develop life-threatening complications like diabetic ketoacidosis. A quick, painless test could catch the disease earlier, allowing for proper management and prevention of emergencies. Implementing this as a standard practice would be a small step with potentially life-saving benefits.
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The idealist in me would like to see this next administration declare a “war” on diabetes. This disease is at the crossroads of so many issues, that if inroads were made to improve these areas of society, the disease would serve as an incredible metric for progress. These include:
- Relationship between race and disease
- Relationship between socioeconomic status and disease
a) Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program Food Review (is SNAP coverage steering low income folks towards high diabetes risk?) - Quality of our food
- Reform of organizations like the American Diabetes Association (https://diabetes.org) that do nothing to improve this issues, and instead profit from them.
- Drug cost/Big Pharma (insulin, in this case)
- I was surprised to learn the Frederick Banting (who discovered insulin) sold the patent for $1 to University of Toronto. He said it was a “gift to the world” - and yet many can’t afford their insulin
- The obesity epidemic (obesity and diabetes are often interrelated)
- Why has the prevalence of the disease grown exponentially in less than a century? (sadly, this includes type 1, aka juvenile diabetes)
- Physical fitness of citizens
- Pushing treatments that generate profit rather than treating patients for best outcomes
- Eroding the quality of our physicians by forcing them to practice medicine basically against the tenets of their hippocratic oath.
Unlike Juliscoupons20, what I’m suggesting is much larger in scope. Therefore, it requires more money, more political will, more effort, and it is probably unrealistic. But I wanted to add the larger perspective to this discussion thread at least. My sense is that there is more will to spend in other areas (e.g. Alzheimers, cancer, etc). People want to fix those diseases that are particularly frightening, which is completely understandable.
However, diabetes has so many other social ills that travel with it. These social ills affect our quality of LIFE. We are all going to die of something, but the prevalence of this disease seems to point to how we’re killing ourselves through a sick, profit-driven society with no regulatory safeguards left. A victory over diabetes feels like a victory for living healthier lives, and that’s why I’d like to see MAHA wrestle it to the ground (at least, inasmuch as the disease is being caused in greater numbers by factors listed above).
An excellent documentary on diabetes: PBS’ Blood Sugar Rising
Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_uJTOeJqZ8
