The Corner Booth

 A very happy (and hopefully blue-colored) World Diabetes Day , Everyone! Of course, this annual celebration was placed on this particular day thanks to its historical D-significance as the birthday of co-creator of insulin, Dr. Frederick Banting, who was born on Nov. 14, 1891 -- and would be celebrating his 122nd birthday here in 2013 if we were alive today! (In fact, the Banting Homestead in Canada just opened a new education center in conjunction with World Diabetes Day this year.) So, we raise a Diet Coke (or Fresca) in his honor today, while marking another World Diabetes Day, which dates back more than two decades, but really started getting traction in 2006 when the United Nations adopted a resolution making it an official day of observance. Gauging the Impact of World Diabetes Day Today, we wanted to take a closer look just how the World Diabetes Day awareness campaign has evolved through the years, and what kind of impact is it having? So guess what? ...

Someone in the Diabetes Community online recently engaged me in conversation about why they do not support a particular color or symbol to embrace diabetes. What started the whole online exchange was how they were promoting diabetes awareness, using a ribbon that had a little blood drop symbol and used a color that most associate with another health condition. I supported the advocacy and D-Awareness raising, but noted my hesitancy behind multiple colors and symbols. I noted my support of the color blue. That person's point: "Diabetes is not a color or symbol, it's a disease. Period." Over time, there have been so many other colors and ribbons in regard to diabetes that it makes my head spin. I often feel that we're doing ourselves a disservice by having so many different colors, as that seems to tell the non-diabetic world at large that we can't even agree with each other about how we want to communicate about diabetes at the very ground level. Thi...