Subject: Consumers Report, October 2001, on Diabetes        
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 16:56:07 -0700
From: Malcolm Graham

Your report on diabetes was excellent. It is a very good introduction to
diabetes and offers very practical advice for helping people control their
diabetes.  I've been using the LifeScan Ultra since it made its debut
earlier this year and completely agree with your rating. In addition, I would
mention that LifeScan offers free software for uploading test results from the meter
to a computer and produces reports from the results which are very useful for
analyzing how well you are controlling your diabetes and to  help focus
future control  efforts.

I think it would also have been useful to include a section on the available
software for uploading test results and an evaluation of their suitability
and practicality  in helping control diabetes. In addition to the software that
simply upload test results and analyze the results, there are also quite a
few software packages that also offer help with creating a suitable diet and
meals complete with a grocery list of items to buy. You might want to consider a
future report on this kind of software. The software I'm currently using and
fully endorse are:

-LifeScan In-Touch, free from http:/www.lifescan.com but you will need to
purchase an interface cable, is used for uploading test results and creating
reports on a computer;

-Diabetes Log, see http://www.tricalico.com, is used to analyze test results
(which you manually input so you don't need an interface cable), produce
reports, prepare meal plans from a customizable food database, and track
calories, fat, protein, and carbohydrates for each meal, day, and week

You might also want to consider follow-up reports on related topics; for
example, controlling your cholesterol:  LDL, HDL, and  trigycerides.

Malcolm Graham
See http://diabetestype2.ca/ to see how I've taken charge of my diabetes
50 Jackson Court, Kanata, Ontario, K2K 1B7, Canada