ANDREW WEIL: If you follow all the lifestyle recommendations for treating pre-diabetes, you should be able to avoid medication. It sounds as if you are doing all the right things but check my website (www.drweil.com) and books for information on dietary supplements and herbs that can also help you control your blood sugar.

I have marginal type two diabetes which I manage quite well by limiting my use of sugar. I regularly use Equal and Splenda. Splenda says it is made from sugar. It concerns me that it is made from sugar. Should I avoid it and use Equal only?
Bud Phillips
Parrish, FL

ANDREW WEIL: They are both ok for you, but i think the natural sweetener stevia is safer.

What do you think of the natural cures for diabetes? Such as the ones in recent books, such as "What Your Doctor Won't Tell You"? My husband is Type 2, receiving Veteran's benefits as it may be caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam. He is afraid not to take his medication to try a natural remedy.
Patricia Cooper
Rockledge, FL

ANDREW WEIL: He can try natural remedies, like bitter melon, prickly pear, chromium, etc., All of which can lower blood sugar. These may enable him to lower the dose of medication. Just monitor his blood sugar as you add the remedies.

Why is there no mention in your article of the potential health risks of animal insulin? My son has had Type 1 diabetes for ten years. About four years ago, he decided to donate blood at the Red Cross. He was asked whether he had been given animal insulin in the hospital when he was first diagnosed. Since he didn't know the answer to that question, he was not allowed to give blood because of the concern that, if he had received beef insulin, he might contract or transmit Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a mentally devastating and fatal illness similar to mad cow disease. There may be other animal diseases which, over time, could evolve into human illnesses due to prolonged exposure resulting in genetic mutation. I agree with you that, if a person with diabetes requires insulin to survive, there needs to be a way for that patient to obtain whatever insulin will sustain him or her. But to suggest that "...drugmakers are dropping animal insulin because it is not sufficiently profitable" seems so one-sided as to be intellectually dishonest and perhaps dangerous to the health of people with diabetes.
Sarah C. McIntyre
Falmouth, ME

ANDREW WEIL: There are arguments for and against both animal and human insulin.

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