Christian Stokes

Minneapolis, Minnesota

When I was only 15 months old I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It is the only life that I have ever known.

Every day I have to take shots, check my blood sugar and count every little carbohydrate that goes into my body. If I do not the consequences could be dire. These doom and gloom statements have been said 1000’s of times before.

These dire consequences are not the reasons I want to stop diabetes. My reason is actually much more practical: finances. Our country is in the depths dark economic time and diabetes is not going away. In fact, it is increasing. One in every five health care dollars is spent on diabetes related care. If $174 billion were freed based on the elimination of diabetes, think of all the things that we could do with that money.

Diabetes is a serious disease. If we don’t do something right away to start changing things, one out of three children born today will face a future with diabetes.