Sites to visit when diet is life-and-death

Site-seeing with Jan Perry

Judging from the response, the column on diabetes struck a nerve with many readers. So many that today's column will provide further information and support for anyone dealing with the disease.

Cyber fiber

http://www.cyberdiet.com

This is just flat out the most amazing site for all things about diet and dieting. There is so much here that if I even mentioned half of it, there wouldn't be room for anything else in the column.

There are interactive features to help you assess your current health picture. Anyone who needs a jump start to make changes necessary to control diabetes can fill in the nutritional profile, check out the risk assessment guide, use the body mass index calculator, figure waist-to hip ratio and determine how body fat is distributed - tests designed to help you see where you are and where you need to be when it comes to your health.

There are menus and recipes as well as food dos and don'ts for everyone from borderline type 2s to totally insulin dependent type 1 diabetics.

There are more than 50 chat rooms. Weight-wary teens, postpartum moms and morbidly obese grandfathers can all find support and motivation through discussions with similar sufferers at Cyberdiet.com.

Perhaps one of the best offerings is the fast-food section, which lets you produce a personalized chart describing and comparing similar foods from the King, the clown, the Colonel and the rest of the speed-feed franchises. A seemingly safe BK Broiler chicken sandwich has a whopping 550 calories, nearly half from fat. And, although McDonald's similar sandwich has only 440 calories with a fat content around 40 percent, that's partly because it weighs almost an ounce less. It has 1040 mgs of sodium compared with 480 mgs for the Broiler.)

To make your own comparisons, select a general menu item (or all items at a particular restaurant), and you'll get a chart that gives calories, fat grams, fat percentage, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron and the all-important but hard-to-figure food exchanges.

Two good

http://www.healthyideas.com

Until I discovered the Cyberdiet site, this was getting the most of my attention.

Again, there are dozens of ways to help you live a healthier - and undoubtedly happier life just waiting for you to surf in and spend a little time online.

From hard starts to sturdy hearts, it's all here.

Food fights

http://dietitian.com

If you don't know diets, know your dietitian.

Much like your pharmacist, a knowledgeable dietitian can add a great deal to your medical and health-care support. For diabetics it can mean the difference between success and failure and, in some cases, life and death.

This site was created by Joanne Larsen who is a registered dietitian with 25 years experience in nutrition counseling. Most exciting, and unbelievably extensive, is an index of 85 topics with a dozen or more e-mailed questions answered for each one.

Jan Perry is a Kentucky based writer who would be happy to hear from you. Write to her with topics or questions at SiteSeer2K@aol.com.