Tom Hanks Reveals He Has Type 2 Diabetes - East Idaho News
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Tom Hanks Reveals He Has Type 2 Diabetes

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GETTY 10813 TomHanks?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1381237618572Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Oscar-winner Tom Hanks has Type 2 diabetes.  The revelation came Monday night when he made an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Host David Letterman asked Hanks, who was looking rather slimmer than usual, about his weight. The 57-year-old actor admitted that he has been dealing with high blood sugar since he was 36, around the time he made Forrest Gump, and recently got some startling news during a doctor’s visit.

Hanks’ doctor told him, “Well, you’ve graduated.  You’ve got Type 2 diabetes, young man.”

Hanks immediately followed up the news by telling Letterman it’s controllable, but morbidly joked, “Well, something’s going to kill us all, Dave.”

His doctor added that if Hanks could weigh as much as he did in high school, he would essentially not have diabetes anymore.

“Then I said to her, ‘Well, I am going to have Type 2 diabetes,’” the Captain Phillips star joked.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form and makes up about 90 percent of diabetes cases. It’s usually managed by increasing exercise and improving one’s diet.  If that doesn’t lower the blood glucose level, then insulin might be needed.

Other celebrities with diabetes include Halle Berry, Randy Jackson and Drew Carey.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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