Developed by JDRF—the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research—alongside Life for a Child, International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD), International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) and Beyond Type 1, the T1D Index uses global survey data from more than 400 publications and 500 endocrinologists to simulate the prevalence and impact of T1D.

The Index was launched in the medical journal, The Lancet and this article from Beyond Type 1 explains its history, aims and projections. As Beyond Type 1 points out, knowing how many people with T1D might be alive today if they’d had access to care, can support advocacy efforts. Knowing the rate of people with T1D globally has more than tripled in 30 years, is a story we should tell.

You’ll find the Index here.

I’ve written before about the wonderful work TCOYD (Taking Control of Your Diabetes) founder and endocrinologist Steven Edelman, and his fellow endo sidekick, Dr. Jeremy Pettus, are doing getting almost monthly virtual conferences of diabetes info to us.

Their educational material is filled with fun and humor and you’ll also learn everything that’s on the cutting edge. Below are two videos I’ve swiped from their most recent email to me that’s chock full of these shorter and longer gems.

I go to Quest Labs every year for my annual blood work for my endo. I’m very lucky, Quest is only two blocks from where I live. Still, I almost missed my 8:20 am appointment this morning. Not that I overslept, rather I awoke at 6 am, but I completely forgot about the appointment.

Then, while pushing down the thingamajig on my French press at 8:12 this morning, the appointment popped into my head. Dressed in five minutes, I practically ran the two blocks.

But what greeted me at Quest was not a person, you know one of those animate objects that sits behind a desk, but a check-in machine. A most irascible one at that.

It wanted reams of information and needed to take photos of my ID and primary and secondary insurance cards, front and back. By time I got to the last of 10 screens, it told me I was more than 10 minutes late for my appointment. And I was by two minutes, but I wasn’t when I first started entering my name, letter by letter, box by box, on this beastly interference-runner between me and the technicians.

Not only did it tell me I was over the time limit to check in, but now I had to pick another appointment day and time. Well, I didn’t think this was fair, since I did start the process within the ten minute limit, so I walked inside and told the two lab technicians what had happened. One said to wait and she’d come and help me.

And she did. Within five minutes she was running me through the machine again (because they must) and took me back to take my blood. I’ve written about industrialized health care, how we have removed the care. But how visible it was to me this morning that this machine reduced me to screen inputs, while it took a human to apply reason, consideration and warmth to fairly easily make the situation work, and soothe me in the process.

In fact, while with Antoinette, the lab technician, and her filling god knows how many tubes with my blood, we talked about how fast time goes, how little she looks like a grandmother, how my coffee was still waiting for me on my kitchen counter, how grateful I was for her defying the beastly machine and how happy she was to do it. We both enjoyed 10 minutes of the joy of interconnectedness, the elation of helping another and the comfort of knowing you are in someone’s care.

I really do not understand why and how we are erasing care, the most healthful ingredient, from healthcare. Why and how we do not think this saving of money, and perhaps greater efficiency, is not biting us on the other end with the outrageous costs of obesity, diabetes, mental health, health insurance, suicide and death.

Once home, I watched this video which is a wonderful overview, in 10 minutes, of the broader picture. The world, and all its creatures were not meant to live without care.

That’s the conclusion from the NY Times story today, “Just 2 Minutes of Walking After a Meal Is Surprisingly Good for You.” Scientists have long said 15 minutes of walking after a meal could reduce blood sugar levels, but now it turns out just a few minutes can activate benefits.

I still remember walking home from a restaurant after dinner, just ten minutes, unexpectedly tanked my blood sugar.

Turns out standing also has a small benefit. Even housework after a meal will have an effect on blood sugar. And, as the article concludes, “The benefits of physical activity are … a gradual effect of more activity, better health. Each incremental step, each incremental stand or brisk walk appears to have a benefit.”

I wrote about compression lows just recently, so it really stood out for me this morning looking at my overnight blood sugars courtesy of Dexcom’s G6. There they are – three CLs (can I name them now?) clear as day, or rather night.

I’m wearing my sensor right now on my left thigh, I wrote about that too recently. A very comfortable spot I’ve found, and don’t intend to abandon.

Had my iPhone been beside me last night, it would have awakened me three times with these lows. I wake up enough these days in the middle of the night, so ever since wearing the G5, I have placed my phone in the living room overnight so it won’t wake me up when these occur.

I am not telling you to do this. Not! not! not! I do not need to be responsible for anyone missing a true overnight low. I trust I can sleep apart from my CGM because of years of oversight and experimentation, I have garnered enough knowledge of where my blood sugar roughly has to be before I go to sleep and how to keep myself from truly going low overnight.

In short (although this is just for me since we know YDMV), I like to be around 100 mg/dl before going to sleep and based on my routine eating, exercise and insulins – Humalog or fiasco and Tresiba or Toujeo – I’ll pretty much hang there all night.

Anyway, I thought this snap of my overnight blood sugar was amusing enough to post, particularly since it illustrates so clearly compression lows.

I also think as I find myself awakening during the night more frequently, (ah, yes, age, well now I’ve covered my last three posts) these are likely times I awakened and turned over on the opposite side that I fall asleep on, which I have noted I do, thus, putting all my weight on the sensor.

I’ve been invited to try out the new Freestyle Libre 3, which I expect to start end of week. Will be interesting to see if the same phenomena occurs. Stay tuned.

Today at precisely 11:05 pm EDT I’m officially 69 years old. Yes, many a joke is, and was, made when my birthday actually falls on Labor Day every few years.

Maybe 69 means I don’t care what people think of me anymore. Rather obvious from my falling apart plastic jacket above. But then if I ask a young(er) person, she’ll tell me, I am sure, that it’s cool to walk around in shredded clothing.

Staying still Covid safe, there’s no big plan with the husband to fly off to Asia or Australia or Capetown, which I still do want to see. Nope, everything’s close to home. A visit with mom, figure it was a big day for her too long ago, and meet friends for dinner on one of my friend’s Manhattan rooftops. These small blessings seem big enough to mark another year in such an uncertain world.

My birthday wish is for more love, more peace and more brightness in the world. And laughter. Perhaps that can be supplied by this photo of early me 😉

And here’s to the love. Lately animals seem to do it better than humans.