My diabetes is such a central part of my life... it did teach me discipline... it also taught me about moderation... I've trained myself to be super-vigilant... because I feel better when I am in control.
The mechanical food system externalizes a lot of costs like obesity or Type 2 diabetes.
Being diagnosed with diabetes can be a very scary thing, and it can easily make your life stand still for a moment.
When I go back to Texas, I travel the state, and I see people all the time who come up to me, men and women across Texas, and they grab me by the shoulder, and they're afraid. They say, 'Ted, you know, I just lost my health insurance. I got a child with diabetes. I'm scared. Please stop this from happening.'
You can fix your body, your heart, your diabetes. In Korea, China, and India, there are people who do yoga. They go to the mountains and do breath-in, breath-out meditation. They can live 500 years and not get sick. Keeping their bodies for a long time is possible; even flying in the sky is possible.
Medicine has been successful by treating diseases in a very specific way once the damage is done. But telomere length integrates a lot of factors together and gives you an overall picture of risk for what is now emerging as a lot of diseases that tend to occur together, such as diabetes and heart disease.