The Gritty Hour
Interesting interviews with interesting people.
The Gritty Hour
Unlocking Diabetes Management: Insights from Chet Galeska's Journey and Expertise
Unlock the secrets to managing diabetes with Chet Galeska, author of "The Diabetes Book: What Everyone Should Know." Discover Chet’s personal journey from his diagnosis at age 29 to becoming a beacon of hope and knowledge for others. We tackle the fundamental differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, debunking the myth that type 2 is merely a result of being overweight, and reveal the true complexity of genetic and environmental factors at play.
Our conversation dives deep into the vital role of diet in diabetes management. Chet breaks down how genetics and dietary habits jointly impact blood sugar levels and offers practical advice on recognizing and limiting carbohydrate intake to prevent blood sugar spikes. Learn real-life strategies for adopting dietary changes that can have a significant positive impact on managing diabetes. We also touch on the dangers of hypoglycemia for those on insulin or specific medications, emphasizing the importance of being vigilant about blood sugar levels.
Finally, we pay tribute to the legendary Ron Santo, who silently battled type 1 diabetes throughout his storied baseball career. Chet shares inspiring stories that highlight the courage and resilience required to manage diabetes, while also addressing the emotional and psychological burdens faced by diabetics. We emphasize the urgency of spreading accurate information and raising awareness, directing listeners to valuable resources like challengediabetesus for further support and engagement. Join us for this eye-opening episode and become part of the movement to educate and support those living with diabetes.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Gritty Hour. I have a special guest today, chet Galeska, who is the author of the diabetes book what Everyone Should Know, which is available on Amazon. I'll show you that page later for our viewers. And welcome to the Gritty Hour, chet. Thank you, tom, pleasure to be here. So I'm going to assume that you have diabetes I do, and that's how you got started on this journey of informing people about it and you know what to do about it, Yep, yeah. So tell us how your journey began, sure.
Speaker 2:When I was 29 years old in 1981, I got type 1 diabetes. So I got it later in life because it used to be called juvenile diabetes, but it turns out that you can get it at any time of life. I happened to get it at 29, but that means I've had it for over 40 years. What I've learned is that there is a lot of misinformation about diabetes out there that unfairly blames and shames diabetics for having their disease. There's a whole bunch of things that contribute to that, and my mission in retirement is to change the way society thinks about diabetes. So that's why I'm on your show.
Speaker 1:Well, what is some of the misconceptions? Is it dietary, is it generic? Is it genetic, I should say?
Speaker 2:Or what is the Well, the biggest one is that type 2 diabetes, which about 95% of people who have diabetes have type 2. Type 1 is the other 5% to 10%. So we're really talking about type 2,. When we're talking about the diabetes epidemic, people generally think that people get type 2 diabetes because they're overweight, and that is just not true. The weight becomes a factor once you have the underlying condition, but it does not cause type 2 diabetes. Let me explain to you quickly how this all works, and everything I say from now on will make more sense if I do that.
Speaker 2:Sure, with normal people, when you digest food, it gets digested into glucose. Glucose is a simple sugar that winds up in your bloodstream, goes all over your body and it enters your body cells that use it for energy. When your pancreas senses the glucose is in the blood, it releases a hormone called insulin. Insulin's job is to act as a key that opens up the cell walls to allow the glucose to go into the cells. So two things happen. One is the cells get the energy they need, but the other thing is that the glucose leaves the blood. So there's a balancing act that goes on automatically with normal people that keeps the blood glucose level in a fairly narrow range. With diabetics, this is disabled. With type 2 diabetes, you get a condition called insulin resistance, which is exactly what the name says. It makes your body cells resistant to insulin. That means that your pancreas has to produce more insulin to allow the glucose to leave the blood and get into the cells. After a period of time, the overworked pancreas starts to lose its capacity. The insulin-producing cells die off and it can no longer produce enough insulin. It's a tough thing because your pancreas loses the ability to produce as much insulin. At the same time, insulin resistance automatically gets worse. So that's when diabetes happens when you have that shortage of insulin all of a sudden, the glucose can't leave the blood, so it stays there, and that's what diabetes is.
Speaker 2:Now you might wonder. You know our body uses glucose for energy anyway. So what's the problem with having too much in your blood? If you look at it this way, it'll make sense. If you take a glass of water and stir sugar into it, what happens? The water gets sticky. Well, you're doing the same thing to your blood. Your blood is getting sticky because you've got that extra glucose in there, and what that does is it causes plaque to build up in your circulatory system and that leads to all kinds of problems, whether it's amputations, blindness, kidney failure. You know that is the root cause. So that's in a nutshell what diabetes is and why it's a problem.
Speaker 1:So the cause of it, though, is it? I guess the most common misconception is someone who eats a lot of sugar. Is that attributing factor, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing, tom, and this is one of the confusing things about diabetes. Well, here's the thing, tom, and this is one of the confusing things about diabetes the underlying cause of both type 1 and type 2 happens when a genetic predisposition encounters something in the environment that triggers it. We just had a study completed by the University of Massachusetts that identified over 100 genes that can cause type 2 diabetes. So that the genes are out there. The triggers are not anywhere nearly as well understood as the genetic part of it is. We don't really know what the triggers are, and they probably vary from person to person. So it's not like you can say well, you've got the genes, so avoid doing ABC, because you don't even know what ABC are. So it's kind of a random thing that will trigger it. Once that happens, you'll develop insulin resistance, and insulin resistance is not curable. So once you've got it, you have to deal with it, and the way you deal with it is by limiting the amount of sugar you put into your body and also by becoming physically active, because physical activity really helps control your blood glucose level. So you have to learn about these things so that you're able to implement them. If you can do that, you can live a long, healthy life.
Speaker 2:Now here's the confusing part. We keep hearing that you can prevent diabetes or you can reverse diabetes, or even that you can cure diabetes, but it's a confusing way to put it. The terms prediabetes and diabetes are just benchmarks that show how high your blood glucose level is. If you have insulin resistance, your blood glucose level will rise and when it gets over a certain level, pre-diabetes is diagnosed. It just means your blood sugar is higher than normal. If it gets even higher, then you say it's diabetes. So they're both caused by the same underlying condition. So they're both caused by the same underlying condition and they're both treated the same way with diet, exercise and medication. That's what makes it confusing.
Speaker 2:When you hear, gee, you could cure it, people wonder, well, why don't you? But the fact is that when they say cure, what they mean isn't that you've dealt with it and you never have to worry about it again, which is what we think of when we think of cures. What they mean by that is that you've managed to keep your blood glucose level below the diabetes threshold for a certain amount of time, whatever that time may be it might be a year If you're able to do that, then they'll throw the term cure at you. But you're only keeping it low because you're watching your diet, you're exercising and you're taking the right medications. If you stop doing those things, you'll be uncured in a heartbeat. So it's really one of the confusing things out there that leads people to think that diabetics are irresponsible.
Speaker 1:Right, so there's three predominant stages pre-diabetes stage, type 2 diabetes and then type 1?.
Speaker 2:No, the two are totally different diseases. Okay, okay, the term diabetes simply means high blood sugar. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease. That's what I have. Okay, immune disease, that's what I have In my case. My body's immune system has turned on my pancreas and it's killed off the insulin producing cells. So I don't produce any insulin. So, at least for me, the treatment is pretty straightforward you need insulin. So, unfortunately, insulin breaks down in digestion, so you have to take it through injections, which is really not a big deal. By the way, people I know I was horrified when I first was told that's what I had to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:people with fear of needles yeah yeah, but you know, with modern technology, you know the needles are short, they're lubricated, they're fine. It's just not that big a deal. Right, you know I can get into other new technologies that are even better, but it's a disease that you can take care of. But you have to know what you're doing to do it effectively. So type 1 is autoimmune, Type 2, as I explained, is insulin resistance. So they're really two different things.
Speaker 1:So, just because I'm a little confused. So the type 2 diabetes? Your body still generates the insulin, but it's resistant to it. It does, and in type 1 diabetes, the body doesn't produce insulin at all. Right, I see. Now what's the difference between pre-diabetes and diabetes? What's the difference?
Speaker 2:between pre-diabetes and diabetes. Pre-diabetes range I think it's from well normal blood sugar is. If you use a measurement called the A1C it's something that measures your average blood sugar over the previous three months Right? Normal people have one, an A1C of 5.7 or below, and I'm a little fuzzy on the figures I should have in front of me. That's okay, but just to give you an example of how this works normal is below 5.7. If you're over 5.7, that's when they diagnose prediabetes you can say your blood sugar is higher than normal. You know, prediabetes may run from 5.7 to 6.1, something like that. Once you get over that 6.1 threshold, then they say you've got a higher blood sugar and this is high enough to be called diabetes, I see. So what they really are is benchmarks. You know, they're not really. Pre-diabetes and diabetes aren't different diseases, they're just different grades of the same disease Understood.
Speaker 1:Okay so, but does that? Does that norm what you said? The normal range is that change with the person's age Like is normal for one age group different from another age group?
Speaker 2:No, normal is normal, yeah, but as you get older they become more lenient with what the targets are. I see you know, if you're younger your target's going to be to have it around 6.9. Anything under 7.0 is good control for a diabetic. So that's higher than normal, but it's low enough to let you live a healthy life, right. As you get older it gets harder for type 2s, especially because they have progressively lost more and more and more of their capacity to produce insulin, at the same time slowing down because they're older, they're not getting the kind of physical activity they really need and plus, they're reaching closer to the end of their life anyway. So the medical community relaxes those standards and they'll tell you well, you know well, for you 7.5, high 7s is okay. So the standards change in that regard. I understand, okay.
Speaker 1:So I just want to talk about culture for a second. I'm sure in your research or maybe you haven't the difference between, say, you're in Massachusetts, I'm in New York, haven't the difference between, say you're in Massachusetts, I'm in New York. So the difference between North America versus other parts of the world, is there a discernible difference between the rate of diabetes among the populations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is, and actually within North America there's a difference in the race of diabetes. There are certain ethnic and racial groups that are more prone to type 2 diabetes. Black people, latinos, native Americans, asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are all more susceptible to type 2. And again, that's a genetic thing. Now, diet may play a role too, because if you're in a culture that eats a lot of carbohydrates and a lot of sugars, well that's going to accelerate your process of getting to a diabetic blood glucose level. But as far as getting in the first place goes, certainly genes play a big role.
Speaker 1:Right. I think a lot of diseases can attribute that to genetics.
Speaker 2:You know, Tom, as time goes on, it really seems that way. It seems like an awful lot is genetic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just passed down Historically. I don't know. You probably don't know because they didn't really document it back in the day as well as they do now. In the last 100 years or so, you know how predominant diabetes was among the population.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the origin of the tracking of it is, but Well, I couldn't give you percentages, but I can tell you that diabetes has been diagnosed for thousands of years. The Egyptians knew about it, in fact what they would do, not the Egyptians, but later on, as doctors, learn more about diabetes. They had people that were called water tasters and they would have them taste the urine of patients, and if the urine tasted sugary, they knew they had diabetes and they would tell them you're going to die. You know there's no urine and you're going to die. So they wouldn't spend their time trying to treat people who were hopeless Right. And it stayed that way until 1925, when, you know, after three decades, after they discovered that the pancreas produced whatever the substance was to control blood sugar. 30 years later they managed to refine it enough and identify it so that it could be used for treatment. But up until 1925, if you had diabetes, you were going to die. Wow.
Speaker 1:No matter what type two or type one, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Either way, it's like I mentioned earlier you put that sugar in your bloodstream and it's going to do the damage.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So diet does take a—genetics does play a role, but diet also plays a role.
Speaker 2:Well, once you get the underlying condition, diet's huge Understood, because the game then is to keep your blood sugar level as low as possible. If you can keep it below the diabetic range, that's wonderful. I mean, it's hard to do, but it's wonderful if you can do it and, believe it or not, there are people who are knowledgeable enough and strong-willed enough to do that just with diet and exercise. Most people don't have those capacities, but it can be done. But what we need to do, with diet especially, is try to limit the amount of sugar you're actually eating, because the easiest way to keep your blood sugar from rising is not to raise it in the first place. I mean, to keep it in control is to not let it rise in the first place, and the way you do that is to identify the foods that are going to raise your blood sugar.
Speaker 2:Now, obviously, sugar is a big thing to stay away from, but the thing that's lost on many people is that carbohydrates, which include starches, also raise the blood sugar. In fact, sugar and starches are the two forms of carbohydrate. Sugar is sweet. You know it when you're eating it. Starches are not, but if you eat a slice of bread that is a starch. It will raise your blood sugar just as much as the sugar would. In fact, one gram of starch equals one gram of sugar. That one gram of starch gets digested into one gram of sugar, so you can't think you're getting. You know you can eat all the bread you want, because you can't. It's just like eating sugar.
Speaker 1:Right, no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it's yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. Well, this is. You know, diet can really be a complicated subject and I developed a diabetes course that I gave before COVID and I gave it in colleges and universities and civic groups and all kinds of places universities and civic groups and all kinds of places and what I realized is that nutrition can be so complicated that it blows people away and they don't really understand what they have to do. But what I tell people to do is exactly what I do. I take a look at what I'm eating. If you look at your diet, most of us have breakfast that stay pretty much the same. Lunches are pretty much the same. Lunches are pretty much the same. Dinners will vary more, but over the course of a month you're going to have the same things repeat. What you need to do is take a look at what you're really eating and identify where the carbohydrates are. Once you do that, then you say, well, okay, you know, if I eat more egg and less bread, you know that's going to help me. You can make those kinds of trade-offs once you understand what they are Right.
Speaker 2:One woman in a class I gave told me that she couldn't keep her blood sugars below 200, which is pretty high. Normal is 70 to 130. But she explained that her husband worked the second shift and he liked to have dinner. When he came home after work she liked to have dinner with him. He liked pasta, so she was eating pasta every night. Well, pasta's a serious carbohydrate.
Speaker 2:So I told her you know, just for the next week, eat something different. You know, don't eat the pasta. You know we recommend, you know, some sort of meat. You could eat eggs. Anything that's protein won't raise your blood sugar. Eat something that's not that high carbohydrate. She came back in a week and said her blood sugars were down to 110. Wow, so that's the kind of thing that you can identify. A lot of times it's low-hanging fruit like that where you say man, even soda. You might say, well, maybe I should stop drinking two liters of sugared soda every day. I know people who do that, not diabetics, but I know people who do that. So you know, those are the kinds of things you can do.
Speaker 1:But when you have diabetes and maybe I'm wrong for example, you can have low blood sugar levels as well in diabetes, like I've heard about people, you know they'll have a Hershey bar if they're feeling fainter. They know their blood pressure is too low. They'll have a Hershey bar to get it back to some semblance of normalcy. Explain that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. What happens with that is that when you take insulin, like I do, or certain type 2 medications, you can have low blood sugars. The problem is that when your blood sugar gets too low, the brain gets affected. Unlike other tissues in the body, the brain takes glucose directly from the blood as it's needed. The body, the brain, takes glucose directly from the blood as it's needed. So if your blood sugar is low, the brain isn't getting the energy from the glucose that it needs and things start to go haywire. You can start sweating, you can lose your coordination, your eyesight can get funky to where you're seeing double or triple. If it gets too low, you can pass out. So it's a serious thing. But you mentioned the Hershey bar. It's easily treatable. All you have to do is eat something sugary to boost that blood glucose level back up and then the brain comes right back online. So it's not hard to cure. But you have to realize when it's happening and eat that sugar.
Speaker 1:Right. So it might be the medication you're on that causes the low blood sugar, not so much the diabetes itself.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a little more complicated than just the medication. It's a balancing act between medication, diet and exercise. Now you're going to take the same medication, so that's not going to change. What is going to change is how much carbohydrate you've eaten and how physically active you've been. Now, if you haven't eaten much carbohydrate at all and you've been physically active, you know, number one, the glucose hasn't been put into your bloodstream in the first place, and number two, your activity has dropped it down even farther. So it's that that's causing it, not the medication per se. The medication will set the stage to make that possible, but it doesn't actually cause it.
Speaker 1:I understand. Okay, Now do you know, like a ballpark figure, what percentage of the US population, for example, has diabetes, whether it be type 1, type 2, or pre-diabetic?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's between 10% and 15%. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:For some reason, I thought it was higher than that. I don't know why.
Speaker 2:Well, you hear these figures kicked around, that you know 30% of people are projected to have diabetes, and that I don't know how they do that, but it's been between 10 and 15% for quite a long time. Right.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously, you being a victim of it, do you call yourself a victim of it? Is that the right?
Speaker 2:term. Okay, no, I don't. I don't like that terminology at all. Okay, I'm a person who has a challenge in life that I can deal with, right, and it could be a lot worse. So, you know, victim to me sounds like you got hit by a car, you know? I mean, I have a challenge and you know what, tom, nobody's perfect. We're all dealing with one thing or another, right, you know. You just got to realize that this is what it is and do what you got to do.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, having diabetes, you made yourself well-versed in it and you did write a book that I'd like to. Just, if you don't mind, I'm just going to share your Amazon page for that book real quick, called the Diabetes Book what you Should Know, what Everyone Should Know, who has Diabetes. Just based on the reviews and the ratings, it's been well-received by the population. So tell us a little bit about what made you write the book. The population.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about what made you write the book. What prompted me to do this at all is that I was in Chicago during the week when Ron Chianta was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He had type 1 diabetes, so he was taking insulin, and we just talked about low blood sugar. Ron is in a game. Last of the ninth Cubs are down by two. There's two outs and two men on base.
Speaker 2:Santos in the on-deck circle. Then he starts feeling low blood sugar coming on. So he just prays that the guy at the plate will make an out and retire the side so he can get back to the dugout and eat his Snickers bar. Well, the guy walked, so Santos said. He walked up to the plate. He looked up and he saw three pitchers, three scoreboards, 30-some-odd people standing out in the field, and when the pitcher threw the ball it looked like it had a slinky attached to it. So he took a cut at it connected and put it out of the park for a walk-off Grand Slam home run. So he made it around the bases and got back to the dugout in time to eat his candy bar. And so nobody was the wiser until 10 years later, when they had Ron Santo Day at Wrigley Field and he told the public that he had been diabetic for all those years.
Speaker 1:Wow, His whole career. He was year type one. His whole career, Yep.
Speaker 2:Wow, yep, he got it before he went to training camp the first year he played.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So you know people think that the walk-off grand slam home run, that's a great story. I mean, if I did something like that, I'd be talking about that to everybody I knew forever. But that's not really the big story. For anybody who's experienced low blood sugar, you know the big story was what was going on in Santo's mind as he's making it around the bases. You know he could have passed out in front of 20,000 screaming fans and his secret would have been out of the bag, Right. So that's what the real pressure was.
Speaker 2:So I came home and started telling that story and what I discovered was two things. One is that most people don't understand diabetes well at all and they believe a lot of untrue things about it. So it's a mess what the public thinks about diabetes and diabetics, Right. The other was that I could talk about type 1, but I was asked about type 2 as well, and what I discovered is that most of what I thought about type 2 was wrong. And that's when I realized that our society has got a real problem with misperceptions about diabetes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's when I decided you know, this is a big problem. I retired a few years after I was in Chicago and I decided to make this my retirement project. So that's why I'm doing it.
Speaker 1:I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn more or maybe has diabetes themselves. The book to anyone who wants to learn more or maybe has diabetes themselves, just go on Amazon and I'll have a link in the show notes for this book, and you've already dispelled a lot of the misconceptions I've had in the short time we've been talking, or at least explained.
Speaker 2:Well, tom, you are much better educated about diabetes right now than probably 90% of the people out there, right? Even a lot of diabetics don't know the things I just explained to you, right? In fact, one of the most gratifying things that would happen to me when I was doing the courses in person is that diabetics would come up to me afterwards and tell me that the best thing I told them was that they didn't cause it. You can see the guilt and shame drip off their faces because for all this time, they've been walking around thinking that, well, I'm a little overweight, I'm not eating right, and I brought it on myself, and you know that it's just too bad. I was so irresponsible, so people beat themselves up over things that they didn't cause right, I was just that's.
Speaker 1:The main thing that I thought when you were talking about the ron santos story was how he actually wanted to hide it during his career.
Speaker 2:So back then there was shame attached right to uh, you know, Tom, there's still a shame attached to it. Now, if you had the misconceptions that diabetics got it because they were irresponsible, you no longer think that you know different. But a lot of people still believe that diabetics got it because they ate too much sugar or they were lazy or they were overweight and all that stuff that points the finger at a person who's got a disease that they got because of the genetics Right.
Speaker 1:Sure, I would think, knowing what can happen again to the Ron Santos story, it's got to cause anxiety in a lot of people that have diabetes. What may happen if their blood sugar goes down or goes too high or too low. It's got to cause anxiety to them.
Speaker 2:Well, it does. But this is where education comes in. Once you know what to look for and you get used to dealing with this disease, you can manage it. Right Now, I've had this for what's the math? 43 years, 1981, 19, 2024. Yep, and I'm doing fine. You know I've had some low blood sugars, but not a whole lot, because I'm aware enough of it to take care of it before it gets serious. But that's what you have to do. You have to learn about it and take action when it's needed.
Speaker 2:Same thing with what you're eating. And, by the way, with eating, the thing that causes the damage is not temporary spikes in blood sugar, it's the average blood sugar. Like I mentioned about the A1C, the reason they use that is that it measures the average over three months. Because it's the average, you can have some food you really like eating that are high carbohydrate once in a while. You want to have an ice cream sundae? You want to eat a plate of spaghetti once in a while? You can do it. You can treat yourself, you know, just get it back down Right. The point is that you can eat what you want, but you can't make a regular diet out of the stuff that's going to keep your blood sugar high.
Speaker 1:Right, you can live whole and happy and just keep it under control.
Speaker 2:And you know something when you think about it. What I just said, doesn't that make sense for everybody? Sure, I mean really, I'm not asking you to do something. That's extraordinarily hard Right. Most people should do it.
Speaker 1:I did ask my doctor about the A1C. They always check your blood, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just had a physical a couple weeks ago and thankfully it's in a good range. But I said, what if I like, don't eat for three days before the physical he goes. You would have to stop eating everything for six months because the A1C picks that up, you know. So my next doctor's appointment is the day after New Year's. I can't imagine what the hell that's going to be. Well, but anyway. But I know you did this. The predominant reason you made this book, which a lot of people have enjoyed, is to just raise awareness of how diabetes is caused and what diabetics can do. How diabetes is caused and what diabetics can do. As you said, even diabetics are unaware of everything they can do to control the disease. Yeah, what I wanted to say was you also have your own website, which I don't know if. Can you see that page there? Yeah, I can Okay?
Speaker 1:ChallengeDiabetesus, which I'm assuming. This is the ron santos story, the first video here, exactly, yeah uh, so right it is.
Speaker 2:It is it an amazing story?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's a great story. I'm a baseball fan. Well, I'm a math fan. Uh, are you a red sox fan?
Speaker 2:or a cubs fan actually I'm a new york giants fan.
Speaker 1:Ah, just like my pop was a New York Giants fan. That's why everybody in my family has met fans, because they moved to San Francisco, you know? Yeah, right, right, yeah. So tell us a little about this website, chet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are two big things on it. One is that on Facebook, I post a one-minute video every week that hits a diabetes issue. So after I post them on Facebook, I post them on the website too, so that there's a bunch of them there and there's going to be more as time goes on. But, even more importantly, I created a couple of videos. One is about the misinformation about diabetes and the other is called the nuts and bolts of dealing with diabetes. They're less than a half an hour long.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go and you can see the prices there. They're cheap. You can rent them for $1.99 for two weeks and really get yourself some basic education about diabetes. What I'm hoping is that not just diabetics, but people who love diabetics and care about them whether it's your spouse or somebody you live with or a relative diabetics and care about them. You know whether it's your spouse or somebody you live with or a relative. It's a good way just to get everybody knowledgeable enough about it to understand what you're dealing with and to help out in a realistic way. Right, if you scroll down a little farther, you can get both of them for, you know, $2.99. You can watch both of them for two weeks, that's a great deal. Yeah, you know, I wish I could give them away, but I do have expenses, oh sure it costs money to make these things and to put them online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the goal here is to educate everybody and the other thing, in addition to diabetics and those who care about them as a general public, I would love to have people watch these in groups, because what that will do is replicate the courses that I used to give pre-COVID. You watch the video for a half hour and then people can talk about it, and what I always found is that some of the stories that people come up with of things they've had to deal with are pretty powerful, and that's what will happen if you watch these in a group somebody's going to have some stories to tell, so it turns into a very interesting and informative program right, is this uh what?
Speaker 1:what did you say?
Speaker 2:you come out with uh a new video every week yeah, if you go to the, see the clips on the far right there.
Speaker 1:Ah, the one. Okay, the little shorts okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're just little clips and you can see the titles there. You know, like I talked about the sugar and water, there's a little one on that. Yeah, how normal. But you know some of the stuff that you and I already talked about.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, that's great. It's great that you're doing this for folks and this part of it is free, right? Yes, but I would recommend is there a way to subscribe to this page where they can get notified?
Speaker 2:No, but they're always going to be up there. If you just go to the website, they'll be there.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a great idea and great on you for doing that. This is the book, again that we discussed, the diabetes book. It's in paperback now, right, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people have read about it, so it's just a phenomenal idea. And again, even people who don't have diabetes I think, if that's a correct estimate, 15% of the population. I can't imagine there's nobody that doesn't know somebody that has diabetes.
Speaker 2:You know everybody either has it, knows somebody who does, or feels guilty.
Speaker 1:Right. So even if it's somebody like a friend of yours or someone in your family and, as you said, if it's one of your loved ones, you want to know more about it yourself so you can help them, or help them commiserate if you'd like, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it gives you some good advice. Like you know, diabetes is a hard thing and you do have flexibility. As I said, you can have your bowl of pasta once in a while. That's not a problem. But in the diabetes world there are people called the diabetes police. These are people who, if you're at a Christmas party and they spot you eating a cookie, they're likely to come over and say you know, are you sure you should be eating that? Well, yeah, you know, I got this, you know.
Speaker 1:Get off my back.
Speaker 2:You know one thing is you know understand enough about the disease to know that diabetics are not going to die because they eat sugar, Right? No, it's not a poison. It's not like you're taking cyanide, Right. You know, it's a question of balance and as long as you keep that average down, you're going to be okay. I had a woman in one of my classes who told me that her aunt had diabetes and this woman and her sister would go into the aunt's house and they would track down every piece of candy she had hidden around the house.
Speaker 1:They would go into her dresser drawer, Excuse me, Don't tell me they'd emptied out the candy from the dresser drawer. That always happens, yeah.
Speaker 2:They took every piece of candy they could find, they confiscated it, yeah, and gave her a hard time for having it. And I told her you know, you really got to understand a little more about diabetes and the fact that if your aunt wants to have a piece of candy once in a while, it's not going to kill her. Give her a break, you know. Right, but that kind of behavior really is unacceptable, right.
Speaker 1:Right, but that kind of behavior really is unacceptable, right? So this is your mission to just make the general population more aware of diabetes, and you've already made me more aware just in the short time we've been talking, and I do appreciate that. But I would like to, if you don't mind, put this website up on the show notes challengediabetesus, and I would definitely recommend people visit that and if they have a question after watching the videos, or maybe the shorts, or they rent the videos can they contact you via that website.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, there's a contact us form there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just give me your information and I'll be in touch. Yeah, I'm sure people have done that already and I'm sure you're forthcoming with whatever. You answer it the best way you can, it's what I do. Yeah, well, you do it well, and I not only appreciate you doing that for people, but I also appreciate you coming on the Gritty Hour tonight, and if you have something else coming down the road, just reach out to me. We'll have you back and we'll discuss this topic further. Appreciate it. Okay, I do appreciate it too, chet. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, have a good night you too.