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"Tom Hanks made a startling revelation last night on the Late Show With David Letterman: He was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Tom says that he&amp;#x27;s had high blood sugar numbers for years, telling Dave: &amp;quot;I went to the doctor and he said, &amp;#x27;You know those high blood sugar numbers you&amp;#x27;ve been dealing with since you were 36? Well, you&amp;#x27;ve graduated. You&amp;#x27;ve got type 2 diabetes, young man.&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; Type 2 diabetes affects the body&amp;amp;#8217;s ability to metabolize sugar. Type 1 diabetes attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, while type 2 diabetes takes root when the body produces insufficient amounts of the hormone or becomes resistant to its effects. Risk factors for type 2 include weight and inactivity. Tom adds that his condition is &amp;quot;controllable&amp;quot;&amp;amp;#8212;he will essentially need to watch what he eats, and keep exercising. In fact, Tom revealed that he&amp;#x27;s shed some pounds in order to control his condition. Actually, he told Nerdist in a podcast: &amp;quot;You&amp;amp;#8217;ve just got to lose weight and exercise a lot and change everything you eat and never ever ever ever ever have any fun whatsoever.&amp;quot; Which is quite a lot of &amp;quot;ever&amp;quot;s, there, Tom. Tom has famously gained and lost weight for roles&amp;amp;#8212;remember his super-lean frame in Cast Away?&amp;amp;#8212;and says that his doctor told him: &amp;quot;&amp;#x27;Look, if you can weigh as much as you weighed in high school, you will essentially be completely healthy and will not have type 2 diabetes.&amp;#x27; And then I said to her, &amp;#x27;Well, then I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to have type 2 diabetes because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school.&amp;quot; (Tom says he weighed 96 pounds and was a &amp;quot;very skinny boy.&amp;quot;) But it sounds like he&amp;#x27;s taking the steps to keep the condition under control: &amp;quot;It turns out, I do want to live.... And it means I have to stay skinnier.&amp;quot; Stay healthy, Tom! Photo: Splash News"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2013/10/tom-hanks-has-type-2-diabetes>