Day 6 of International Diabetes Awareness Month, and eagle-eyed readers might have spotted links to a short film – via FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus, or The Press, our wonderful local newspaper here in York. The fact that this short link will be shown in Times Square New York to mark World Diabetes Day 2015 is out there, but what hasn’t yet been explained is why.

Why have I teamed with a local filmmaker, the lovely Dave Thorp, to devise and develop this project? So here it is – the reason why! In the form of the press release engineered by Sarah Smelik of Coppice Publishing:

NEWS RELEASE 4th November 2015

Lone crusader confronts silent killer in Big Apple

A British woman fed up with the inertia surrounding a killer that kills and maims more people than gun crime or breast cancer is taking matters into her own hands on a giant scale.

Nutritionist Elaine Wilson, from York, is so passionate about her message about diabetes that she has paid out of her own pocket for a specially-commissioned hard-hitting mini-film to be shown on a continuous 24-hour loop on a 100-foot screen in Times Square on World Diabetes Day on November 14th.

“The approach to diabetes care in the US and the UK is a disgrace. It costs health services billions every year, and costs ordinary people their lives. I am so fed up that diabetes lags massively behind in terms of media coverage that I decided to take matters into my own hands to get my message across. And where better to get noticed than on a giant screen in Times Square on World Diabetes Day?” she says.

“It’s Diabetes Awareness Month and yet there’s been hardly any media attention on it in the UK. Diabetes is treated like a poor relation compared to other more newsworthy topics like breast cancer, gun crime and drug addiction, and yet it kills and maims far more people a year than all of those!”

This is the message that is at the heart of her gritty two-minute film, shot by York filmmaker David Thorp, which features a killer holding a victim at gunpoint, and a child playing with his toys next to a gun. It calls diabetes the ‘Silent Killer’ which, Elaine says, is because people don’t treat it as seriously as other threats to life and health. “I didn’t pull any punches in this film because it’s got to the stage now where people need to be shocked into action. Last year the International Diabetes Federation released an infographic claiming that one person dies from diabetes every eight seconds. This year Diabetes UK are saying it’s gone up to one every six seconds! Not only that, but of all the new cases of diabetes diagnosed each year, 90% are type 2, the type that is directly linked to diet and obesity and which is entirely preventable. It has to stop.”

Elaine believes the approach to nutrition for diabetes taken by most healthcare systems in the West is just plain wrong and that obesity and associated Type 2 diabetes will continue to rise at alarming rates unless there is a seismic shift in thinking. A radical change in approach could dramatically reverse the crippling cost to health care services, and the devastating toll it takes on patients and their families. She is frustrated at the lack of attention the problem gets, despite the alarming statistics associated with it.

She adds: “I have people come to me who are desperate for help because the treatment they get through their doctors isn’t working. I am a qualified nutritionist, specialising in diabetes, and nutrition is at the heart of the global diabetes epidemic. Our health services should recognise that their approach to diabetes care is not working, will not work, and hasn’t worked for years. The statistics speak for themselves, and yet they keep doing more of the same, and getting even worse results. When will they wake up and recognise that they need to change the way they treat people with diabetes?”

Elaine has been a practicing therapist for 15 years and has devised ‘The RebalanceDiabetes Programme’, and is the author of ‘The 6 Diet’ specifically targeted at people with diabetes.

“Blood-sugar balance is the key to success for people with diabetes, and they can take as much medication as they like, but if they don’t get that right, their health will never improve. Of the people who have followed my advice on diabetes and followed a tailor-made nutritional programme to balance their blood sugar, 100% have achieved superb results.100 per cent! They go back to their doctors, who can’t believe the results, and yet still don’t pick up a phone to find out how those results were achieved.

“At the moment I’m The Lone Crusader beating against a wall of ignorance and indifference, but I hope to be at the head of a great crusading army in the near future.”

Ends

So there you have it! The whole reason is that diabetes awareness in the UK for International Diabetes Awareness Month has been pitiful for years. This year I’m taking it to the biggest, most famous screens in the world! #standtogether

Elaine x