A diagnosis of diabetes may send shivers through the patient, ripples that reach out to family, friends, associates, acquaintances, and folks who'll someday cross paths – personally or professionally. Diabetes For Dummies speaks to anyone who wants to know what the disease will mean in their own or someone else's experience, from the first moment when the word darts out of the doctor's mouth through all the ups and down of a long and satisfying life. This down-to-earth, compassionate guide gives you the nitty-gritty on wa ys to

• Prevent and manage diabetes
• Choose the best treatment plan
• Find the right practitioner
• Build a support team
• Stick to an effective diet program
• Locate additional help online

A healthy supply of knowledge and insight can help you face the facts of diabetes, a major medical condition surrounded by myth and personal opinion – some well-founded and some, well, fabricated. Diabetes For Dummies explores the real deal on

• Working through your initial reaction to a diagnosis of diabetes.
• Knowing what whether you have type 1 or type 2.
• Battling short- and long-term complications.
• Monitoring your glucose.
• Managing the disease with diet and exercise.
• Helping your child or parent handle his or her own diabetes.
• Cooking up diabetes-friendly meals with tasty recipes.

By following the rules of good diabetic care, you actually can be healthier than people without diabetes who smoke, overeat, under-exercise, or combine these and other unhealthy habits. This friendly resource will move beyond the "bad" news sensed at diagnosis to a good start at staying fit and feeling great!

Amazon.com Review
"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). --Joan Price