No-Sugar Added Poetry, a breathtaking and beautiful new collection of 39 poems written by people touched by diabetes from around the world, has just been published by the Diabetes Hands Foundation (www.diabeteshandsfoundation.org). The collection provides profound insight into the challenges, hopes, and fears of those living with diabetes through the power of their poetry.

As Dr. Bill Polonsky, CEO of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute, writes in the foreword, these poems “speak to the emotional effort of trying to figure out how to fit the uninvited guest of diabetes into life.”

When the Diabetes Hands Foundation held a poetry contest in 2009, more than a hundred people responded to the call. People with diabetes, parents and other loved ones, health care professionals and other members of the TuDiabetes (http://www.tudiabetes.org) and EsTuDiabetes (http://www.estudiabetes.org) social networks shared their poetry about how diabetes has touched their lives.

“We were humbled to read the submissions from the participants. It was very difficult to choose from so many beautiful poems,” said Manny Hernandez, President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation. “In the book, we describe through poetry the stages of life with diabetes - from diagnosis all the way to acceptance.”

The Diabetes Hands Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to connecting people touched by diabetes and raising diabetes awareness, published this compilation with sponsorship provided by Roche Diagnostics, makers of ACCU-CHEK blood glucose meters. No-Sugar Added Poetry includes thirty-five lyric poems and four haiku about life with diabetes.

Besides helping people who read No-Sugar Added Poetry better understand the ramifications of life with this complicated chronic condition, the book reminds the reader of the cathartic power of poetic expression. Lee Ann Thill, a Certified Art Therapist and diabetes patient since 1978 sums it up in the introduction: “From words, carefully chosen, purposefully arranged, emerges a shared experience and mutual understanding.”

No-Sugar Added Poetry can be ordered at: www.NoSugarAddedPoetry.org.