The Don asks: ‘Can you see your feet?’

Media Release
14 August 2009

The Don asks: ‘Can you see your feet?’

“If you can’t see your feet while leaning slightly backwards upright, you will die prematurely from Type 2 diabetes,” says Professor Sir Don Beaven, eminent Christchurchdiabetologist.

“Any extra fat can trigger Type 2 diabetes, our worst pandemic.”

An emeritus professor and co-patron of Diabetes New Zealand, Sir Don is one of more than 70 people holding a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM).

“Don” to his many friends, and “The Don” among New Zealand diabetes authorities, the newly created knight is no Don Quixote unrealistically “tilting against the windmills” fighting an imagined enemy – as in Miguel de Cervantes’famous novel.

Diabetes can, and must be dealt to if the New Zealandhealth system is not to be overburdened with “our single most important disorder which is killing 12 people every day of the year.”

He says Diabetes New Zealandhas emphasized and advocated for 10 years to the Ministry of Health, nurses and doctors that blood sugars over 5 lead to complications and loss of health and wellbeing. “However, we see no money allocated for specific campaigns by any politicians.”

Professor Sir Don says specific gut viruses trigger Type 1 diabetes in children with a 5% increase year on year.

In 1988, the year before he retired as clinician and researcher from the ChristchurchMedicalSchool, he saw the launch by a New ZealandMinister of Health of the first diabetes guidelines. He chaired the working group, which resulted, in 2003, of national guidelines for the management of Type 2 diabetes.

In his 85th year Sir Don plans to continue advocating urgent action on diabetes. Some small steps have been made, but many more are needed to defeat the diabetes scourge.

In his view the knighthood is not just recognition of his own lifetime’s work combating diabetes. Rather, he modestly says, the 39 voluntary societies of Diabetes New Zealandsee the award as notification to the public that diabetes is New Zealand’s single most serious non-communicable disease. “We must have action now.”

Sir Don is being knighted in Old St Paul’s, Wellington, on Friday 14 August.

ENDS

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