Book review: Diabetes: A practical guide to managing your health

I like this book! I would happily recommend it to both patients and healthcare professionals alike. The book is divided into six main sections:

• What is diabetes?
• Food, drink and physical activity
• Controlling your blood glucose
• Living with diabetes
• Children and teenagers
• Possible long-term complications.

Each section is easy to understand and comprehensive in terms of content and readability. On reading the book it generates a positive approach to managing diabetes, with the emphasis being on maintaining health. I particularly like the fact that the emphasis is on the individual taking the responsibility for managing their diabetes; this is particularly illustrated in the sections entitled ‘Working with your health care professional’ and ‘Benefiting from health care’. The authors acknowledge the fact that living with diabetes can be challenging at times, and the inclusion of motivation and coping in the long term, followed by the ‘What are you going to do about it?’ approach, is inspiring.

Why read this book?
What sets this book apart from others is firstly the photographs. These are excellent and bring the book to life ‘in the real world’ far better than the line drawings so often seen in many patient guides.

Secondly, the real life anecdotes and experiences, I am sure, will help many patients see that they are not alone. included and explained will enable a greater understanding of diabetes amongst its readers.

Summary
In summary, this book is an easy-to- read comprehensive guide to managing diabetes. I am sure it will be a valuable resource and appreciated by many patients and their families.

Diabetes: A practical guide to managing your health
Authors: Rosemary Walker & Jill Rodgers
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley in Association with Diabetes UK
ISBN: 1-4053-0265-8
Price: £16.99