Menopause And Diabetes

Half of the human population goes through a significant hormonal shift, yet few people are willing to talk about it, and many suffer alone.

I was walking through the airport when I spotted O Magazine’s Straight Talk About Menopause magazine. Instantly, I was reminded of Divabetic’s Menopause and Diabetes workshops, podcasts, and YouTube videos.

Both O Magazine and Divabetic offer expert advice on recognizing and treating symptoms and weathering mental and emotional storms.

Oprah has spoken about her own experiences with menopause, including having trouble concentrating, heart palpitations, and feeling muted. She also shared that she started taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and said, “I got my first click of estrogen, and I was like, the sky is bluer!”.

Oprah Daily launched a menopause guide with discussions, classes, tools, and expert advice on navigating menopause.

Menopausal symptoms include heavy bleeding, weight gain, joint pain, and mental health symptoms. But only 17% of OB-GYNs are trained to treat menopause.

However, Divabetic tackles the topic of menopause from a diabetes perspective. Our panel featured Dr. Julianne Arena and Donna Rice and was moderated by Catherine Schuller. According to research, hormone levels (most notably estrogen and progesterone) fall dramatically during menopause. Changes to our hormones can affect our blood sugar levels and make managing diabetes more difficult.

Dr Julianne Arena is a double board-certified physician, a board-certified OBGYN who applies traditional, integrative methods and a multi-layered approach to helping women with sexual health and intimacy issues. She’s also a practitioner of Cliovana, the only treatment available that improves long-term clitoral stimulation with proven sound wave technology. Her goal is to help women create optimal and vibrant lives.

Donna Rice is a registered nurse and a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist. She is a national and international thought leader and author of four books, including Divabetic’s ebook Sweet Romance: A Woman’s Guide To Love And Intimacy With Diabetes. She is a Past President of the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists and the Past President of the Diabetes Health and Wellness Institute for Baylor Health Care Systems in Dallas, Texas. Donna is the Chief Operating Officer for DiabetesSisters and The Chief Evangelist for Call-ai, working on voice-driven AI for diabetes care and education.

05/14/202405/14/2024

Oprah Winfrey Admits To Perpetuating Toxic Diet Culture

Is the tide changing toward diet culture? Perhaps, when one of America’s most prominent icons admits to fanning the flames of body shaming and the lack of willpower in millions of Americans trying to lose weight. By ‘Diet Culture,’ we refer to a societal obsession with dieting and weight loss, often characterized by the promotion of restrictive eating habits, unrealistic body standards, and the stigmatization of those who do not conform.

Recently, Oprah Winfrey acknowledged her role in abetting America’s toxic ‘Diet Culture during a three-hour WW special. For decades, she promoted guilt and shame as well as the redemption of weight loss on her various media platforms, including a cable TV network, magazine, and talk show.

“I’ve been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight-loss shows and makeovers I have done, and they have been a staple since I’ve been working in television,” she admitted.

Sadly, Oprah isn’t the only one. Famous women’s magazines, Morning and Daytime Talk Shows, cartoons, and stand-up routines are rife with weight loss stories, jokes, and new diet programs promising quick results.

How harmful is our obsession with losing weight by any means possible?

Numerous studies indicate that yo-yo dieting is bad for your heart. Yo-yo dieting, also known as weight cycling, can stress your heart and increase your risk of heart disease. In the short term, regaining weight can cause problems like angina, heart attack, and stroke. The more significant the swings in weight, the bigger the risk.

My boss, Luther Vandross, gained and lost over a hundred pounds at least eight times while working for him. His developing stroke and untimely death at age 54 are primarily associated with a result of weight cycling.

He, like Oprah, lost a hundred pounds on the infamous liquid diet. But millions of other Americans suffer from this vicious cycle of hating themselves and their bodies for their inability to maintain and sustain weight loss.

Oddly, Oprah’s confession was part of WW’s slick rebrand as a weight-health company that offers drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. I’m still trying to understand why she confessed in this forum. But I cannot deny she seems to have seen the light since Oprah Winfrey backpedaled from her statements about weight loss medications being an “easy way out” to admitting they’re redemption.

Oprah Winfrey backpedaled from her statements about weight loss medications being an “easy way out” to admitting they’re redemption.

She added, “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people, particularly myself.”

01/29/202401/29/2024

States & Healthcare Insurance Companies Are Stopping Weight Loss Drugs Coverage

Over the weekend, I read that the state of North Carolina is cutting off coverage of anti-obesity medications for state employees, citing soaring costs and a lack of agreement on pricing from drugmakers.

These anti-obesity injectable weight loss drugs are the rage from the Hollywood elite to shoppers at your neighborhood bodega.

Case in point: last year, at this time, I didn’t know anyone on these drugs. Last week, three friends told me they were either using or had taken the drugs. And all three knew countless other people using them.

These drugs work by making people feel fuller and eat less, with some side effects. Two of my friends admitted they suffered from diarrhea and stomach pain while using the drugs.

According to reports, patients who took the highest dose of Mounjaro, a diabetes drug from Eli Lilly Co. that’s in testing as an obesity treatment, lost an average of 50 pounds.

North Carolina’s decision affects a class of drugs known as GLP-1s, which treat diabetes and help with weight loss. Medications like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Zepbound have soared in popularity but are expensive and require long-term use.

According to Forbes, many more state-backed plans don’t cover GLP-1s for weight loss, but the ones that do are trying to limit rapidly increasing costs.

Connecticut introduced a trial lifestyle-management program for state employees seeking the drugs for weight-loss treatment in July after spending on the class rose 50% annually since 2020. Virginia tightened restrictions on which Medicaid enrollees can receive them for obesity.

When Ozempic is prescribed off-label for weight loss, it is often not covered by insurance. Why? Because the Affordable Care Act doesn’t mandate that health insurers cover obesity or overweight medications or surgeries.

Due to increasing costs, some health insurance companies and employers are also halting coverage of Ozempic, Wegovy, and GLP-1 drugs.

The private healthcare system Ascension stopped coverage on July 1, 2023, stating that weight loss and anti-obesity drugs will no longer be covered in its pharmacy benefit to its nearly 140,000 employees.

What does this mean to people taking the drug?

My friends using Ozempic and Mounjaro lost significant weight, but their insurance stopped covering the cost after six months. Without insurance, the average monthly price of Mounjaro is between $1,000 to $1,200, depending on the pharmacy. All three have gained back the weight they lost.

Routinely, when Ozempic is prescribed off-label for weight loss, insurance does not cover it. Why? Because the Affordable Care Act doesn’t mandate that health insurers cover obesity or overweight medications or surgeries.

If your health insurance no longer covers your prescription, is Noom or Weight Watchers a solution?

Although most of my friends think weight loss companies adding weight loss drugs to their arsenal is a cop-out, if you can no longer afford these drugs, these weight loss programs might help with weight loss maintenance.

Let’s start with Noom. For years, Noom has promoted itself as a psychological path to weight loss. Now, Noom believes adding these injectable drugs to your program makes the outcomes much better.

WeightWatchers members can also get weight loss drugs. The WeightWatchers telehealth clinic: a reworked version of Sequence’s telehealth services.

After Oprah appeared on the Red Carpet promoting The Color Purple, people speculated about her weight management. Oprah told People magazine that she’s using one of the weight loss drugs that are commercially known as Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro.

Sadly, many one-time dieters see results from injectable weight loss drugs as far more reliable and easily obtained than from these habit-changing programs. But many of my friends who are desperately trying to lose weight feel taking these drugs is cheating. The weight loss industry has brainwashed them into believing weight loss is about willpower. I believe it’s about an individual’s body chemistry. Many people have a physical addiction to the fat, salt, and sugar formulas of popular foods. These people can’t stop at one potato chip; they eat the entire bag. Other people suffer from obsessive thoughts about food, which Rosie O’Donnell refers to as ‘food noise.’ In a recent interview, she spoke about how Mounjaro helped calm these thoughts in her head. I found her Plus SideZ podcast interview enlightening.

For many, these weight loss drugs are improving lives and health outcomes.

Novo Nordisk also offers a patient assistance program that provides Ozempic at no cost. To be eligible, you must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident with a total household income at or below 400% of the federal poverty line.

12/07/2022

Kirstie Alley’s War With Fat Shaming

Actress Kirstie Alley, a two-time Emmy-winning actor who rose to fame with her role as Rebecca Howe in the NBC comedy series “Cheers” passed away after a brief battle with cancer. She was 71. Unfortunately, the fat shaming she received throughout her lifetime didn’t die with her.

Fat shaming pierces my heart because I witnessed how detrimental it was to my former boss, Luther Vandross‘s diabetes wellness. For years his fans commented on how much better a ‘fat Luther’ sounded versus a ‘thin Luther.’ He seemed miserable every time the scale tipped over 200 pounds. In his eyes, every professional success was overshadowed by his inability to maintain his weight loss. I felt he believed he couldn’t be happy until he lost the weight.

Thankfully a new crop of musical talent has abandoned the “if I lose weight, everything in my life will be better” belief.

Singer-songwriter Lizzo is known for telling her audiences, “go home tonight and look in the mirror and say, ‘I love you, you are beautiful, and you can do anything,’” she also often speaks publicly about the challenges she has faced in accepting her body. Lizzo is not shy about citing bullying, negative media images of women who look like her, racism, and misogyny as factors in the difficulty she experienced in coming to love herself and her body.

Her openness about coming to love herself and her body makes her one of music’s most prominent icons for body positivity. She’s happy with her shape, evident in her commercials for Peloton workout classes.

But long before Lizzo entered pop culture, Kirstie Alley made people think about fatness on TV, often at her own expense.

But whereas Lizzo appears comfortable with her shape, Kirstie Alley was in a continual battle with hers. From hawking weight loss programs, Jenny Craig and her own, to losing weight on Dancing With The Stars, Kirstie never stopped trying to change the number on the scale.

In interviews or her reality TV series, “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” or her TV show, “Fat Actress,” she portrayed a keen sense of self-awareness and frustration.

Who can blame her?

Who can forget the vicious way she was shamed on the cover of supermarket tabloids? I probably would have crumbled from the duress. Imagine seeing yourself and your shape chronicled every week. Hateful headlines such as: “TV bosses tell Kirstie Alley, ‘You’re too fat!’” and “She admits to gaining 30 pounds, but it’s really 50!” were commonplace.

In what I think is one of the biggest displays of personal strength, she said this constant bullying led her to lose weight.

“Honestly, I didn’t know how fat I was,” Kirstie Alley told Oprah in a 2004 appearance She claimed the media’s attention to her weight had led her to become a Jenny Craig spokeswoman. Two years later, she wore a bikini on Oprah’s show to show off her 75-pound weight loss.

Unfortunately, she gained the weight back. And because of that, we rooted for her again and again.

A few years later, she dropped 100 pounds after appearing on ‘Dancing With The Stars.’ And once again, she spoke of not feeling comfortable in her body before this weight loss: “I feel I’m back in my element. I honestly didn’t realize what I looked like,” she told “Entertainment Tonight.”

She used humor as she routinely divulged details of her diet, calorie count, and weight. But she couldn’t rid herself of the layers of shame built up over the years. In my opinion, the jury is still out on whether or not Kirstie Alley was a body-positive activist — whether she meant to be one or not! Maybe her struggle is a lesson for all of us. You can’t manage your health if you don’t love yourself the way you are today.

Some poor fools believe that making overweight people feel ashamed of their weight or eating habits may motivate them to get healthier.

However, scientific evidence confirms that nothing could be further from the truth.

Fat shaming is harmful to health and may drive weight gain.

Singer Angie Stone is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, producer, actress, and mother. She was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 1999. “I was always on the go, and thought I was too busy to develop something like this,” Stone said. “I thought at the time that diabetes went along with bad habits, but I was the last one in my family to eat junk food.”

She didn’t realize that she was a perfect candidate for diabetes: She had a family history of diabetes and was fighting weight problems.

“I came to accept my diabetes when I realized just how many people around me, even in my own family, were living with diabetes,” she says. “It gave me a lot of courage to see all these people just like me, going places, involved in normal things, and I became determined to learn what I needed to better manage my diabetes.”

Guests: Poet Lorraine Brooks, PCOS Diva founder Amy Medling, Dr. Beverly S. Adler, PhD, CDE, Dr. Sara (Mandy) Reece PharmD, CDE, BC-ADM- PCOM, Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDE, Jeff James, and Mama Rose Marie.

Throughout this podcast, we will feature songs from ‘Stone Hits: The Very Best of Angie Stone’ courtesy of SONY Music.

02/24/2021

James Corden Says He’s Fed Up With Being Unhealthy

I’m fed up with the way I look, I’m fed up with being unhealthy. This is the year I’m doing it,” admitted late-night TV host James Corden who struggled with his weight for a long time.

The Emmy Award winning actor shared his weight loss goals in an emotional video posted to the WW YouTube Page.

“I’ve realized that every year for the past decade — probably even 15 years — on January the 1st I’ve told myself and anyone that would listen that I’m going on a diet, I’m going to lose a load of weight,” the new WW spokesperson said.

He said he hasn’t had much success with diets in the past. He’s hopeful that this time will be different. He said his son, Max, 9, is a major source of inspiration.

He goes on to mention that he believes that WW has the tools to make him fulfil his resolution for this year. With James Corden’s weight loss goal, the company is also giving away a hundred of thousands of memberships.

Five weeks after starting the program, James Corden said he’s lost 16 lbs.

“And I’ve been doing some exercise, which I hate. I just can’t bare it, so I’m using the word ‘hate’. But my wife is so good at it.”

During James Corden’s YouTube interview, Oprah Winfrey said, “WW is all about making yourself more aware of what you are eating and taking responsibility for that.”

Tune in To Divabetic’s popular Diabetes Late Nite podcast featuring Mila Clarke Buckley ‘The Hangry Woman’, Sex Therapist Janis Roszler, PhD, RD, LD/N, CDCES, FAND, and Bella Krueger and music from Celine Dion’s ‘Falling Into You’ album.

Love New Recipes?

Join the happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic for this free Virtual Cooking Party with special guest, Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator Jill Weisenberger MS, RDN, CDE, CHWC, FAND on Zoom on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, 7-8 PM, EST. Jill shares her favorite quinoa recipes with us!

Tag: Oprah