Happy Thanksgiving!   (November 19, 2007)

To everyone everywhere, whether in the US or elsewhere in the world, let me take just a moment to say "Happy Thanksgiving!" in the hope you can have the opportunity to be with family and share the blessings of good food and good fellowship with those you love. And if you wish, to watch parades or football on television, or perhaps in the cold brisk air of a grey late autumn day.

Thanksgiving should be a time for everyone with diabetes to give thanks for the many new products, both medications and technology, that make diabetes something we can live with. The care for people with diabetes in the US has changed in so many ways since I was a newly-minted physician 30+ years ago -- from playing with urine and making it turn pretty colors, and boiling insulin syringes and sharpening needles on whetstones, to gadgets and devices such as continuous glucose monitors and miniature insulin pumps, as well as a myriad of new medications that were only a dream a decade ago. So we should give our thanks to the scientists, engineers, and researchers who have made life better for some of us fortunate enough to be living in a world of plenty.

On Thanksgiving Day, enjoy your turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and whatever (in moderation, of course!). And also, pray for a day when there will be access to better medical care for people with diabetes throughout the world. Let's hope that someday soon, all people with diabetes will be able to partake of the miracles of modern medicine and will be able to offer their thanks for better health and a longer life.