My family moved to the United States when I was 4 � years old.Before this move my diet consisted of small regular balanced meals.I only drank water and unsweetened herbal teas (such as peppermint, chamomile, and lemon verbena) as a child. I can remember feeling tired and sluggish after eating bread for breakfast.Lunch had no effect (because of physical activity).Dinner always made me feel sluggish (hyperglycemia), but I attributed this to fatigue after a long day.I do note that I would often wake up late at night feeling weak or hungry (hyperglycemia triggering insulin release leading to hypoglycemia). When we moved to the USA, many things changed.I had to adapt myself to a new world.It was hard for me to cope with this new life.Emotionally it was difficult.I experienced many negative feelings, and there were also turbulence and lack of a stable routine.Things were just changing very quickly, all the time.My parents were working hard to succeed and it was very difficult for them. The changes in my diet included more and more carbohydrates and sugars such as: bagels with cream cheese, breakfast cereals, and orange juice for breakfast, as well as white bread, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, pizza, and cookies.I began drinking sugared soda.All of these were influences from school and popular culture.I did not like drinking tap water because of the chlorine taste.Purchasing bottled water was also not as widespread as it is today.Besides soda had more appeal and I had a sweet tooth.Eventually I was drinking only soda.I was eating more and more bread and cookies.I was eating ice cream.With Halloween came the introduction to junk foods.I spent a lot of time watching television because my parents were busy.I learned English by watching television.And when I watched television I ate.I ate bread and cookies, I ate ice cream, and I drank soda. In 1981, during summer vacation from school I spent most of my time watching television, eating and drinking soda.As a foreign kid not speaking English, I did not make many friends. I felt compelled to learn English, in order to gain acceptance.For the first few years I was experiencing culture shock. I was also missing my family abroad.I was sad and I withdrew. During that summer I became more and more thirsty.The weather was very hot and humid; I was not used to this.I was drinking a 2-liter bottle of soda each day to the amazement of my family.In September, I went to my family doctor, he performed a urinalysis in his office, and it was negative.Remember what I said about the relationship between sugar, carbohydrates, and disease. In December, I became sick with a cold-like infection accompanied by fever and nasal congestion.My mother did not allow me to drink soda, only hot chamomile tea. After a week I began to feel better.Then I began to nag my mother about allowing me to drink soda.She said O.K., but insisted that our family doctor should have a look at me.I began to drink soda again. My family doctor did a urinalysis in his office and it was positive.He recommended that I go right to the emergency room of the local hospital.He did not prescribe antibiotics as he had done in the past when I was sick, instead deferring my treatment to the experts at the hospital who could better figure out what was wrong with me and determine an appropriate corrective course.Also I was over most of my physical symptoms at the time of examination; it seemed that I was getting better.The rest is stated in the record. I was still sniffling when I was in the hospital.A nurse noticed that. I remember my head feeling slightly feverish for a brief period.After they gave me the bad news, which I never believed was really that serious, I thought to myself, maybe I was still sick.My family doctor didn�t give me pills.Surely I would have preferred taking pills than shots. I became confident that the problem was my cold and I informed the doctor responsible for my care, saying to him: "What about pills for my cold?"I was trying to draw his attention to the fact that I had a cold and to change his focus to that. "Oh pills, no your family doctor gave you that", he replied. He assumed that I had seen my family doctor just as I was coming down with the cold.The fact is that I always became carsick when I was healthy.So when I came down with the cold and already felt nauseated, there was no way I would get into a car to see the family doctor, that wonderful inhumane car upholstery smell. I believe that this endocrinologist assumed that because my family doctor had said "virus," he must have thought that he was observing "beta cell destruction" in progress.This would have been a wrong assumption and unscientific. Each time I visited the endocrinologists for routine check-ups, I was required to fast and take a blood test the following morning.After the blood test I would go up to the hospital�s pediatric endocrinology � diabetes center.There they would offer me a high carbohydrate breakfast, either bagels or cereal and orange juice right around the time when the �dawn effect� was naturally increasing my blood glucose.Then they would reinforce the fact that I should not eat sugars, as if carbohydrates do not affect blood glucose, and then blame me for my non-compliance.The �take home� message I received was "go ahead, eat your carbohydrates."Then I would go to school.By noon I would be very hyperglycemic, to the point that I would feel sick.In school I was often taught about the �Food Guide Pyramid�, that emphasizes high carbohydrate consumption.These messages were dishonest and very damaging to me. < PREVHOMENEXT >