Investigating Diabetes

* Reviews *

Investigating Diabetes: Real Facts for Real Lives is not a treatise on how to do research on diabetes, as the title suggests. Rather, the book is a comprehensive primer that can well serve patients with newly diagnosed diabetes and their families with its detailed account of diabetes, the causes of the disease, and its potential consequences. The text describes the symptoms which suggest that one may have unsuspected diabetes. Of the greatest value to persons with newly identified diabetes are sections on how the condition is diagnosed, how it can be treated, and what additional health problems it can generate. Readers with deeper curiosity can get a brief historical picture of diabetes that stretches from ancient Egypt up to our times. An appendix details the author's sources. The text is generously supported with color photographs and with sidebars that amplify key points of information. For readers who are neither diabetic nor have any family members who are diabetic, the discussion of the broader problem of obesity in growing fractions of our populations and its implications for problems in health beyond diabetes itself is valuable. Balanced against these concerns is an optimism supported by accounts of current progress in diabetes control and research; one short section points out a number of current celebrities who live productively despite their being diabetics. Some readers in the field of medicine may find a few bits of pertinent information missing. An example is the omission of pancreatic cancer as a cause of late-onset diabetes. But altogether, this text covers what it aims to cover so comprehensively and clearly that it might even serve as an introductory textbook for medical school students., Science Books & Films November 2010