Paula Deen to announce Type 2 diabetes diagnosis

Reports say the celebrity chef will make an announcement Tuesday that she has the disease and will be the spokesperson for a diabetes-fighting drug.

Fri, Jan 13 2012 at 2:15 PM

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Healthy Eating, Celebs, Viruses & Diseases

Paula Deen's famous "Lady's Brunch Burger" Photo: Marshall Astor/Flickr

Paula Deen will soon announce that she’s a Type 2 diabetic and has a multi-million dollar contract to represent a diabetes drug, report outlets like Huffington Post and CBS News.

Deen will appear Tuesday on NBC's Today Show to discuss the "health rumors." The National Enquirer first reported the diagnosis in April 2010 but Deen has never confirmed or denied the diagnosis.

According to WebMD, two of the risk factors for Type 2 diabetes include a high-fat diet and obesity or being overweight. Paula Deen is famous for her high-fat recipes where she adds a lot of butter to many things and deep fries things that were never meant to be deep fried (lasagna, stuffing, and even butter). One of her most famous dishes is her Brunch Burger, a burger topped with a fried egg and bacon on a bun made from a glazed donut. A steady diet of the things she cooks on her shows, coupled with being overweight and her age, make a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes unsurprising.

The backlash and the Paula Deen jokes have already started on Twitter about Ms. Deen bringing this on herself. Another backlash is brewing from the fact that she’s turning a possible self-inflicted disease into an opportunity for a multi-million dollar drug endorsement.

It’s way too soon to know exactly how the drug endorsement will play out. Nothing has been officially announced yet. But I do hope that in addition to going on the drugs and endorsing them, Ms. Deen changes her diet and gets active to show that Type 2 diabetes can be treated by diet and exercise as well as drugs. The very gregarious Ms. Deen should to be vocal about that, too.

Paula Deen is very charming. People warm to her quickly. If she does indeed have diabetes, she needs to take care of herself first and foremost. But, if she can also use her celebrity and influence to educate others about Type 2 diabetes that’s becoming more prevalent in our country as our collective weight goes up, she could make a big difference in the fight against obesity. Wouldn’t that be incredibly ironic and incredibly cool?

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Comments: 2

RNTravelGnome Jan 14 2012 at 5:22 PM

Type 2 Diabetes is a lifestyle disease. It is caused by poor eating choices and lack of exercise. This disease is not caused by genetic makeup- too many people want to point the finger to their family and say it was destiny. You can completely "cure" the disease/side effect of your lifestyle choices by choosing whole grains, fruits and vegetables, never putting anything in your mouth that has high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oils; if the label has even one word that you can't pronounce,

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put it back on the shelf! The drug companies and many healthcare providers do not want you to know that you can eradicate this without ever putting a pill in your mouth because it is the number one driver of profits in this country right now. Here is the cure for type 2 diabetes- eat a healthy, whole grain, vegetable, low fat meat/protein diet, exercise daily for at least 30 minutes, if it's made with white sugar or white sugar, don't put it in your mouth and also don't put anything in your mouth that sounds like the label for a bathroom or kitchen cleaner

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Tarrant Jan 15 2012 at 10:03 AM

You can not completely cure Type 2 Diabetes, even if you eat and exercise for normal blood sugars for the rest of your life. Type 2 Diabetes can go into remission but never technically cured. In addition, there are risk factors for Type 2 Diabetes that include low birth weight and chronic stress, as well as ethnicity. In any case, eating huge salads and servings of brown rice can lead to diabetes the same way a soda and a bag of chips can. Yes, reversal is possible, manageable and do-able--for

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many more people than go that route.