Your Health

Thinking through the behavioural changes that you need to make for your health

W. Gifford-Jones MD & Diana Gifford-Jones

April 15, 2022

BY W. GIFFORD- JONES MD & DIANA GIFFORD-JONES

This column, over forty-five years, has begged people to make lifestyle changes that will help them avoid the development of type 2-diabetes. Failing that, there’s mounting scientific evidence that natural supplements supporting glycemic control can help mitigate dietary abstinence and lack of exercise. In the event diabetes takes hold, then give thanks to Banting and Best for their discovery of insulin 100 years ago. Is there one more opportunity for Gifford-Jones to get the “Prevention, Prevention, Prevention,” messaging out?

How about the publication of a Gifford-Jones timeless classic for children, a book as good as Goodnight Moon? How about a story as meaningful as Ferdinand the Bull, or a variation on The Very Hungry Caterpillar? A story of “moderation in all things.” How many grandparents would give the gift of a lifetime of health to their grandchildren by reading over and over and over again a story in which the doctor whispers, “Good night, … and stop it!”

Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle disease. It occurs when blood sugar (glucose), required to supply energy to cells, becomes elevated. Diabetics having a genetic defect experience a failure of the pancreas to produce enough insulin (type 1 diabetes). For others, the high sugar consumption associated with obesity results in elevated blood sugar that exhausts the ability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin (type 2 diabetes).

There have been other delightful Gifford-Jones ideas to help people think through the behavioural changes they need to make. The “Gifford-Jones Stopper-Bopper” was one of them – a small hammer that could be used to knock sense into the head at the moment of an indulgent meal.

The “Gifford-Jones Talking Scale” is another example of a product we think would yield results. How many times have you read in this column, “Make your bathroom scale your best friend,” or, “The best advice is to step on the scale at least once a day? Doing so means you are never faced with surprises.” How much more effective might the scale be if you heard the admonishing voice of Gifford-Jones, “You’ve gained three pounds. Stop it!”

Readers may have other ideas about what might work to convince people, young people in particular, to commit to a healthy lifestyle. We’d love to hear them.

But this week, let’s play tribute to the remarkable research of Banting and Best. It was 100 years ago this week, on November 23^rd, 1921, that Banting injected himself with an extract from a foetal calf pancreas, obtained from abattoirs in Toronto. What an ethics committee would do to halt such approaches today! But millions of people owe their lives to these intrepid researchers.

The University of Toronto established the Banting Chair of Medical Research and the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research, housed from 1930 in a medical building named the Banting Institute. That location is being transformed into the currently rising Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre, a research complex for artificial intelligence scientists and biomedical experts and home to an entrepreneurship network supporting student and faculty-led start-ups.

Who will champion the simple things, like the nightly reading of a good children’s book with a short, clear message? “Don’t put too much sugar in your mush.” When the scale talks back, don’t whisper, “hush!” Listen to the doctor’s good advice and instil your grandchildren with words of wisdom. Start early in establishing healthy habits, and never stop. Anyone have a storyline to contribute to a Gifford-Jones children’s series of no-nonsense bedtime reading?

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Written By W. Gifford-Jones MD & Diana Gifford-Jones

Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, MD is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Harvard Medical School. He trained in general surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University and in Gynecology at Harvard. His storied medical career began as a general practitioner, ship’s surgeon, and hotel doctor. For more than 40 years, he specialized in gynecology, devoting his practice to the formative issues of women’s health. In 1975, he launched his weekly medical column that has been published by national and local Canadian and U.S. newspapers. Today, the readership remains over seven million. His advice contains a solid dose of common sense and he never sits on the fence with controversial issues. He is the author of nine books including, “The Healthy Barmaid”, his autobiography “You’re Going To Do What?”, “What I Learned as a Medical Journalist”, and “90+ How I Got There!” Many years ago, he was successful in a fight to legalize heroin to help ease the pain of terminal cancer patients. His foundation at that time donated $500,000 to establish the Gifford-Jones Professorship in Pain Control and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto Medical School. At 93 years of age he rappelled from the top of Toronto’s City Hall (30 stories) to raise funds for children with a life-threatening disease through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Diana Gifford-Jones, the daughter of W. Gifford-Jones, MD, Diana has extensive global experience in health and healthcare policy. Diana is Special Advisor with The Aga Khan University, which operates 2 quaternary care hospitals and numerous secondary hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies, and laboratories in South Asia and Africa. She worked for ten years in the Human Development sectors at the World Bank, including health policy and economics, nutrition, and population health. For over a decade at The Conference Board of Canada, she managed four health-related executive networks, including the Roundtable on Socio-Economic Determinants of Health, the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, the Canadian Centre for Environmental Health, and the Centre for Health System Design and Management. Her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government included coursework at Harvard Medical School. She is also a graduate of Wellesley College. She has extensive experience with Canadian universities, including at Carleton University, where she was the Executive Director of the Global Academy. She lived and worked in Japan for four years and speaks Japanese fluently. Diana has the designation as a certified Chartered Director from The Directors College, a joint venture of The Conference Board of Canada and McMaster University. She has recently published a book on the natural health philosophy of W. Gifford-Jones, called No Nonsense Health – Naturally!

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