This week

Interesting week in my life, Running is going great did 50K last week and started this week off with a fantastic 19K run. It was sunny in Halifax today a bit windy over the bridge but a very enjoyable 19K.

Had an interesting day on Saturday was invited to a discussion put on by the Canada Health Council to discuss Diabetes, Today and Tomorrow. It was a great day. They brought together about 30 people to discuss a range of topics on Diabetes. This included the statistics which are staggering. I did not realize that almost 14 Billion Dollars is spent on Diabetes alone.

Scary were our health care money is going. The focus was on Type II diabetes since it can be prevented in some cases. We discussed what we thought was good in our healthcare system and what was bad. It is amazing that the good things in Diabetes care is also part of the things we don’t do so well.

In my opinion the question education came out a lot. Not just as something that we do well but something that is weak. There is lots of information out there but how do people access the information. Are the Doctor and our health care professionals helping to get the info out? Not just to diabetes but to non-diabetics.

Its important to get the message out there, Diabetes is a big problem, as a Canadian Man or women you have a good chance to become diabetic at least 1in 3 if you are white. But if you are African Canadian you odds go up to 1 in 2 and if you are of aboriginal decent it’s almost 100% that you will get diabetes.

Canada has to get better about how we get the message about diabetes out to all people. Especially those at risk, it was no surprise that low income people are more subject to the disease then higher income people. We discussed the high cost of being healthy, it cost more to eat healthy and live healthy. If you don’t have the money it’s harder to choose foods that are better for you.

All in all I think the eight hours with the Canadian Health Counsel was time well spent. Let’s hope that in some small way I was able to help the future role of Canadian Health care for diabetes.