An article in today's New York Times details the horrendous epidemic of what used to be called "adult onset" diabetes in the New York region. It used to be called "adult onset" until a few years ago, when children began to get it in record numbers, and what had once been an illness that affected only the old began to affect people of all ages.

The problem is a diet high in fat and sugar and a sedentary lifestyle. It is causing people to lose their limbs, eyesight, and have strokes and other debilitating conditions. Lantern author Monica Sweeney, director of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Medical Center, is quoted in the piece. Her clinic and others like it in the less affluent parts of New York City are on the front lines: the disease disproportionately affects the poor and obese. One of Lantern's books, The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention offers one solution; another one, The Joy of Weight Loss by Norris Chumley, offers another. Neal Barnard offers others. Change your diet and begin moving before it's too late.