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Celebrity Focus: Ben Vereen
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By Kalia Doner
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Diabetes Focus Fall 2009
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Kinetic, funny, always in motion, curious, warm, inexhaustible, generous, emotional…that’s Ben Vereen! But the description is missing one surprising adjective: diabetic. On Christmas Day 2007, this Tony Award-winning actor, dancer and singer was diagnosed with type 2. Ben hadn’t known what to make of the way he was behaving: grumpy, moody, tired, urinating all the time and craving certain foods. “And I was just sitting on the couch, not doing anything,” he says. “But I never thought it was diabetes. I didn’t know what to think.” Ben admits the diagnosis shook him up. “I had to look at how I ate and what I did in a whole new way.”
These days he keeps his glucose levels in check by testing them two to three times a day and taking one shot of insulin. “I test in public if I have to, and you know it’s a great conversation starter. People say, ‘Do you have diabetes? I have it too!’ It’s been a real revelation, the community of love that this has introduced me to.”
Now Ben’s reaching out to each and every person in the country with type 2 to tell them that they can be okay—no, better than okay, terrific! “You can live a great life with diabetes,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “You don’t have to hide, and it’s not a death sentence. That’s my philosophy.” For more of Ben’s tale, visit bensdiabetesstory.com.
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