The Frugal Physician

The Frugal Physician is actually the name of a book I’ve been writing for the past 20 years; I plan to continue working on in in real time here. The subtitle is: A Cheapskates Guide to Medicine. It has taken me a long time to understand why this is so interesting and so important to me; I’ll explore these as I go along.

The first is, finally, an utter appreciation of what it means to be middle class. My parents spoke of this often as my siblings and I grew up. It was generally spoken as a positive thing, having to do with a work ethic, living such that one was not dependent on others, etc. Sometimes, it was derogatory, as in ‘so middle class’. This generally referred to leaving personal items on the top of a bureau, particularly bottles of medicine or beauty products. The reality is that the middle class lives within a budget of their own earnings, with little expectation of outside help or anyone to bail them out if they don’t. (for this reason, transitioning from poor to middle class is kind of like going from the frying pan into the fire…)

Our first product, therefore, in the Cheapskates Guide is the Diathrive blood sugar testing products

You can reach them at Diathrive.com. One months supply of blood sugar test strips is $8. I went for broke and got 3 mo supply, which included a free test meter (glucometer). These are useful for anyone living in the US, brought up on the standard, basic, mainstream American Diet (SAD, BAD and MAD). It is the driver of the epidemic of prediabetes, diabetes, insulin resistance etc, which in turn is druving/causing the secondary epidemics of heart disease, dementia, non alcoholic fatty liver disease, and abnormal lipid distribution (dyslipidemia). Therefore, addressing, preventing, ameliorating and curing problems with blood sugar will be the first focus of the Frugal Physician.

(Without making a vow, I promise that it will be much more entertaining than you would expect!

So, everyone, check out www.Diathrive.com. For those who want an advance glimpse of the next episode of the FP, check out Dr. Jason Fung MD’s talk on YouTube, The Origin of the Obesity Epidemic.

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