'Sex And The City' Star Talks Diabetes Awareness

Chris Noth has an unquestionably recognizable face. Having starred in television shows that run the gamut of genres -- from Mr. Big in “Sex and the City” to Detective Mike Logan on “Law & Order” to Peter Florrick on “The Good Wife” -- Noth has attracted quite a bit of critical acclaim and fan attention.

Now, he’s using that star power to raise awareness about diabetes.

Pairing up with global healthcare company, Novo Nordisk, Noth is helping to launch a national campaign (Ask.Screen.Know) promoting diabetes screening and education. According to the CDC, in 2010, 25.8 million people in the United States were living with diabetes -- 8.3 percent of the American population. Seven million of these people were undiagnosed. It is this demographic that Ask.Screen.Know is trying to reach, specifically targeting adults over the age of 45.

“This is a disease that’s way too much under the radar,” Noth told The Huffington Post. “We’re trying to get ahead of the game with people; … encouraging [them] to call [their] doctors and get a blood test.”

Noth isn’t the first celebrity to lend his face to the cause of diabetes awareness. Earlier this year, celebrity father and daughter duo, Paul and Mira Sorvino, launched Diabetes Co-Stars, which encourages people living with diabetes to seek out the care and help that they need in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle -- and keep their diabetes under control. Paul Sorvino was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2006.

Both Ask.Screen.Know and Diabetes Co-Stars push people to re-examine their lifestyle choices, focusing largely on healthy eating and exercise. A 2002 study that examined diabetes prevention, found that “lifestyle interventions” such as weight loss and increased physical fitness reduce risk for developing Type 2 diabetes by 58 percent (and 71 percent for those over 60). “Why aren’t lightbulbs going off [in people’s heads]?” Noth asked. “Especially in a country where people are addicted to a diet of sugar, carbs and processed foods -- leading causes of diabetes as people get older.”

When asked about the role that celebrity spokespeople play in the dissemination of cause-based campaigns, Noth was quick to say that he’s there to “perk people’s curiosity.” Beyond diabetes, it has become commonplace for A-List actors, sports stars, singers and television personalities to brand health causes with their own faces.

Michael J. Fox has become practically synonymous with Parkinson’s Disease, which he was diagnosed with in 1991 and founded a research foundation for in 2000. Other public figures such as Magic Johnson (HIV/AIDS), Lance Armstrong (testicular cancer), Brooke Shields (postpartum depression) and Montel Williams (multiple sclerosis) have also taken on awareness and research efforts for diseases that they themselves have battled. Others, including Noth himself, have been drawn to these causes by family members or friends.

The ultimate hope is that a familiar face will make people want to listen. “I’m not a doctor; people know me from ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Law & Order,’ says Noth. “If I can get their attention, then so be it.”

Comments

[Parker Gabriel]

11:45 AM on 07/13/2011

But is Chris Noth on the borderline of being a type-two diabetic himself?

If so, then that would probably go a long way towards his accomplishment of this "giving back" mission of making people aware.

[sunflower12]

10:41 PM on 06/29/2011

I was lucky enough to see Chris Noth walking on Second Ave, NYC, a couple of months ago.
He looks much better in person than on the screen, he looks younger, healthier, everything about him was good. Also, completely unpretentious.
Diabetes needs all the help it can get, but, from what I could feel from him, it's good to have his support.

[ladydragon]

03:57 PM on 06/29/2011

Mr. Big needs to go have his teeth cleaned, they're really really yellow.

[JerseyGirl4Obama]

03:22 AM on 07/03/2011

Some things are better left unsaid. Especially unkind ones.

[Richcrafter]

11:02 AM on 06/29/2011

Hmmmm. Does he still rough up women, too?

[JerseyGirl4Obama]

03:23 AM on 07/03/2011

Does he really?

[Heather Mims]

11:04 AM on 07/09/2011

He does not rough up women. Those charges were dropped and she recanted, plus has a history of making similiar allegations against famous men.

[JenniferAllen8319]

03:40 AM on 06/29/2011

Diabetes is surely 'under the radar' and thanks to celebrities like Chris Noth, awareness and support is encouraged.

[SitandStay]

01:07 AM on 06/29/2011

And from another HP article about Type 2 diabetes generic prescriptions....
"The study also showed that Wal-Mart raised prices for the most-prescribed branded diabetes treatments by 32 percent between 2008 and 2010, while Kmart, a unit of Sears Holding Corp, raised its branded prices by 35 percent. The increase over the same two-year period was 21 percent at other pharmacies, which includes chain drugstores, mail-order firms and independent pharmacies, according to the study.

Neither company responded to a request for comment."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/wal-mart-ups-prices-for-b_n_885374.html

[SitandStay]

12:57 AM on 06/29/2011

As long as our attention is diverted and we let them shame us into the unproven....that diabetes can be prevented...then they win and do not have to address the way our food is processed and engineered. Also, it lets the oil companies continue to sell their product to the chemical companies that have literally poisoned our crops and us.
India's farmers are commiting suicide by tens of thousands, many drinking the poisonous chemicals they were sold, due to the false promises our chemical companies made to them.
Many oil companies have been sued for their products. Vietnam vets can tell you about Agent Orange......similar to RoundUp.
Yeah....don't look at our environment....it has to be us... BECAUSE WE ARE EATING TOO MANY FOODS TREATED WITH THEIR CHEMICALS!

[SitandStay]

12:10 AM on 06/29/2011

As patents go, you only have to modify a product slightly to receive a patent.
There has been no advancement in diabetes in a long, long time. However the pharmaceutical companies have caused more destruction to the environment and made ungawdly profits from the meters. They create meters that beep, a meter that has a stored memory, a meter that has a big memory, a meter with a memory that you can download, a meter in different colors, a "meter" that can be implanted and monitor your glucose levels and push insulin into you, a meter that announces your glucose reading, a meter that has large digits, a meter that is more compact, a meter than comes in a case with a stick pen and glucose strips, ad infinitum. Lucky for the pharmaceutical companies that diabetics have fatigue as a common symptom, so they won't be hearing for even a very small number of them.
And on top of their uninterrupted grab for profits, manufacturers of medical devices have been protected during the last presidential administration from liability.

[SitandStay]

12:40 AM on 06/29/2011

Glucose strips are expensive but cheap to manufacture.......now they have been designed to EXPIRE!, forcing you to buy even more. As a brittle diabetic I can tell you prior to the strips that were made to stop functioning they were reliable enough. It is far more dangerous to not be able to test at all than have a reading a few points off. BEFORE they made these "Mission Impossible" strips, every time my meter and the strips were tested in comparison to the physicians office meter...they were the same. I guess I shouldn't say this because I'm sure the Big Pharma will find a way to purposefully make them not read correctly.
I once gathered up about a dozen of my meters and pens and mailed them to the offices of one manufacturer along with a printout of the bio of every person sitting on the board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research (joke joke) Foundation with "Jerk" written on the page.
Once I found a twin of a board member in a photo, online, at a restaurant with a steak in front of him. The restaurant offered a free steak if you could consume the entire steak. It was several pounds. Great promotion for sensible eating habits for a diabetic or maybe he received free prescriptions, meters and test strips.
Landfills are where all these glucose meters come to rest not because they are broken, but because the glucose strips are made exclusive for each meter type.

[SitandStay]

11:55 PM on 06/28/2011

On all the weight loss shows and advertising, you will not see any claims for a way that Type 1 diabetics can lose weight. Once you begin taking insulin, good-bye hope.

GREAT BRITAIN was the first to make insulin available to her citizens.

INSULIN was discovered in 1921 by researchers in TORONTO. 1921!

The last big leap in looking for a cure was, once again in Canada, at the University of Alberta in the city of EDMONTON. The procedure is called the Edmonton Protocol which calls for implanting islet cells that are produced in the pancreas in healty persons. Remarking to my endocrinologist about never having had a family member with diabetes, he advised Type 1's usually don't have a family history of it. This leaves the environment.
I became diabetic in 1994 and had always lived a very active lifestyle.
Now I am a brittle diabetic. And in my opinion, once you have diabetes, you never have a day in your life where you feel really healthy.

[teresa1960]

04:49 PM on 06/28/2011

When will people learn that type 2 diabetes is preventable and curable by diet? I just don't understand why anyone would take a dangerous drug instead of adjusting their diet.

[SitandStay]

12:50 AM on 06/29/2011

I was not over weight when I became diabetic and had no family history of it.

[teresa1960]

07:40 AM on 06/29/2011

You don't have to be overweight to be diabetic. It's a result of eating too many sugars via starches, carbs and refined sugar. Check out Gary Taubes book Why We get Fat and learn the truth about nutrition and the western diet. It might save your life.

[SoCalDoc]

09:53 PM on 06/30/2011

Not true. A proper diet is one of the things that is important in reversing the impact of type II diabetes, but it is much more complicated than that.

[sj user1]

11:59 AM on 06/28/2011

There is big money to be made in causing and treating diabetes. There is little money to be made in preventing it. So expect it to increase.

[David4FreePress]

11:50 AM on 06/28/2011

So he has gotten popular enough to help pharma sell products.
The diabetes market is HUGE.
You didn't mention how much he is being paid to do this.