Diabetes Books

The diagnosis of diabetes is traumatic enough for an adult but even more so for a child. Rufus helps the child, family, and friends deal with this disease in an informative way that is neither too medical nor too simple. Our hospital gives the Rufus book along with the actual Rufus teddy bear to any child with a new diagnosis of diabetes. The book explains how the diabetes is managed and the bear gives the child someone else (the bear had diabetes too) to go through the shots and blood sugar tests with. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a child with diabetes even if it isn't a new diagnosis.

Brian, a young boy, is diagnosed with diabetes and hospitalized. While in the hospital, he learns about his diabetes and begins to practice giving himself shots. He feels lonely and overwhelmed. His mother has the bright idea of giving him a stuffed teddy bear who also has diabetes. Brian is able to practice his shots on the bear. The bear is a source of comfort because he has to experience the shots just like Brian.

I liked the story, but I really could have done without the subtle product placements all through the illustrations. I could live with discrete print advertizements in the parents' sections. I do not think that the text or the illustrations in children's books should be used to hawk specific products.

After learning of a friends, grandson's recent diagnosis, I searched for a book geared toward a small child. "Rufus Comes Home" was the perfect choice! The book provides the information needed to deal with the illness and specific care, but is written in a compassionate style that would not frighten a child.

I was hoping for a book that gave me fun creative ways to make yummy food for my diabetic son. He gets sick of the same old things all of the time. I really wanted some recipes he would enjoy that were good for him too. There were maybe two recipes in this book that were worth the purchase. The rest of the book was packed full of stuff that most kids wouldn't want to eat. I think it would be a great book for an adult diabetic, but nothing exciting for kids.

This book provides fantastic recipes for children of all ages, and not just those with diabetes. It offers great ideas about how to manage eating, plan meals, and be mindful of food intake, all with easy recipes that produce delicious results. I'll be giving it to many of my friends (both those with and without children)as a gift for the holidays.

This uniquely designed menu book is a breakthrough in our understanding of healthy meal preparation for kids with diabetes, while at the same time promoting healthy eating for all kids. The colorful illustrations make cooking easy and fun. The recipes are attractive and appetizing and include menus for lunch, snacks and parties. This is a must for every family, including camps, hospitals, schools and youth organizations. What a treasure!
Beatrice W. Welters
Founder
Camp Dogwood Summer Academy

Betty Crocker has put together another wonderful and easy-to-follow cookbook. The meals are healthy and tasty. Simple recipes for all "chefs". Worth the purchase and you will not be disappointed.

As a vegan with a diabetic husband I was hoping there would be more vegetarian recipes in the book. As someone who gets sick at the smell of any meat, I simply cannot cook anything with meat in it. So I was a little disappointed that there were not more veg. recipes.

While this book is very helpful for anyone following an exchange-based dietary plan, many of the brands listed are unfamiliar to me. I assume they are regional. In addition, the most commonly used brands in my region are often missing from the book. That means I need to compare nutritional facts from each label with the products listed and make a note for the future. That's more work than I usually want to take on. However, this is a still a helpful book for my meal planning.

I'm on a food exchange diet plan, similar to the counts listed by the American Diabetes Association. This book is easy-to-use, listed by type of food and brand name. It's filled with 4,000 foods, including all the ones we typically buy. It has the necessary nutritional information & clearly listed food exchange values. It's a must-have tool for meal planning and taking to the supermarket, helping make good food choices from start to finish. Worth far more than the price - I recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone on a food exchange diet plan.

As a 57-year-old man who has been struggling with Type 2 Diabetes for 21 years, I found this book helpful despite already being well read in this subject. Although I've had years of diabetes education, there were some good nuggets here about food, and useful, anecdotal patient success stories about the specific foods they eat and when they eat them.

My only complaint is that Dr. Peters needs to include one more chapter to deal with insulin injections, for those, like me, who have never used insulin before but who may need to do so in the future. And within that missing chapter, she needs to talk about the risk of gaining weight on insulin even with reduced calorie intake, which has happened to many acquaintences. Perhaps these people are doing something wrong, but Dr. Peters doesn't address this frequent and serious concern.

Still, for anyone who needs a lot of information about dealing with diabetes up front, this is as close as it gets to a one-stop shop.

A no nonsense, sophisticated, cutting-edge explanation of the disease, its causes, its evolution, its effects on the body, the latest medical research, the best therapies, diet, the best approaches to exercise and weight management, and the best medications available to remediate and manage the two types of the disease.

Two aspects of the book stand out. First, it does not give a "sugarcoated" version of how serious this disease is: It is brutally honest in making clear that it can and eventually does affect every aspect of the body: the eyes, the extremities, the organs, especially the heart, and the kidneys, also can exacerbate existing high blood pressure and high cholesterol problems.

Second, it gives a detailed analysis of the various medications and discusses their history and evolution, their medical effects and the various situations in which it is most appropriate to use them.

Altogether it is a valuable medical reference and handy resource.

Four Stars

As a former expat in Saigon with family and friends all along the Mekong Delta, I'm naturally interested in the precision and breadth of guidebooks on SE Asia. This one from Footprint seems to cover all the bases in a detailed and realistic fashion. Since there's always uncovered terrain, it's the one I'll bring on my next trip over. And for new visitors, I'd also recommend the video "Raise The Bamboo Curtain: Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma", available from Amazon.

Just came back from a three week trip to Vietnam with three books: the Lonely Planet, the Rough Guide, and Footprint Handbook.

The Rough Guide is the best guidebook around for the country. It is superior to the Lonely Planet guide in the breadth and depth of coverage and especially its accuracy. I liked LP for other countries but here they did a very poor job.

I have not found even one instance where Lonely Planet provided information that Rough did not have. If you are traveling to the north, you may want to consider reading Footprint before you leave -- it has some interesting information.

Also, all hotels -- even the top ones -- can be negotiated down in price. Send them an e-mail and ask for special rates, corporate rates, etc. You can stay at the Metropole in Hanoi for less than half their rack rate.

This cookbook had some very delicious recipes, especially if you're on a special diet. However, it lacked nutritional analyses, which are very important for me, a diabetic. I returned it in hopes of getting the third edition, but I found out from the American Diabetic Association that this cookbook has been discontinued as most of its recipes are in another in the series of Month of Meals cookbooks: All-American Meals. The third edition of this series of cookbooks have nutritional analyses.

Using this book is a no-brainer - which is what I REALLY needed. My husband was just diagnosed with Type II diabetes, and his nutritional needs are critical. We are stationed in Germany and are in the process of moving. I was disheartened when I found that the military dietician is unavailable right now. Other books were confusing - trying to figure out 30% fat calories, etc. This book saved my sanity! The spiral binding and split page design are FANTASTIC and the food is GREAT. Directions are concise and it's easy to prepare a menu and shopping list from the book. Best of all, we're getting nutritious, consistant, easy meals and snacks and half the work is done for us. Some of the books in the series even include smart choices when eating out at fast food restaurants - another bonus. When our doctor and nurses saw these books, they were AMAZED. My recomendation: get all five!

This book is quite useful, if perhaps overly full of information that is not of interest to the average person.

It is good because it provides a straightforward summary of what gestational diabetes (GD) is, and answers a number of the basic questions in clear, reassuring terms.

The only significant problem I did not see addressed was the question about whether having GD implies that the woman should be induced early in order to counter the leading danger from GD, which is an overweight baby.

There is, however, a ton of material here if you want a sourcebook for a whole array of studies, material and related info on GD.

Although this book was helpful, it really didn't answer all of the questions we had and we have yet to find the definitive book on the subject.

I really liked this book and if you like basketball then you will love this book.I really liked it because it was a story about a kid who loves the game and suffers diabetes and it really inspires me that he loved the game so much that he continued playing even when he was suffering a disease.It's a great story.

this is a good book if you like basketball or if you ever haveto overcome an obsticle.

this book gives good information helping to change eating patterns. it gives background reasons for the changes.. but as with any self help book, the eating change is up to the reader.

Lots of information, very thought provoking regarding the dangers of too much sugar hitting your system at one time, spiking your insulin production, which can do a lot of damage. Diabetes runs in my family, so the topic of the book is of major interest to me. Some of the recommendations are contradictory, though, as if the book was written by several authors who didn't quite agree on the best course of action. In spite of this, in general, the book has had a significant impact on my own lifestyle - primarily in diet, since I had been following a healthy exercise routine prior to buying the book. Well worth reading!