Paula Deen Has Type 2 Diabetes [Video]

Paula Deen, the queen of comfort food, has confirmed what many people have long suspected. She's one of the millions of Americans living with type 2 diabetes.

That news knocked me over like, well, ok, it didn't knock me over. I, like many people, wasn't shocked at all to learn Paula Deen has type 2 diabetes.

The Food Network star revealed Tuesday on the Today Show she was diagnosed 3 years ago, while she continued to promote her high-fat, sugar-loaded recipes on her Food Network shows.

Deen now has an agreement to be the new "face" of a health initiative by Nova Novartis, makers of Victoza, a new injectable, non-insulin medication used to treat diabetes.

So why wasn't I surprised to learn the queen of fat-food cooking has diabetes? Because (aside from a long family history of the blood disorder) I have type 2 diabetes too.

Trust me, a diet of fattening, creamy, heavy food will leave you with clogged arteries, heartburn and a carb craving that a freight train can't stop. Because your pancreas is working overtime to turn those carbs into glucose. It's a drug for the body. Get the picture? There isn't a dadgum thing on any ADA diet that she makes.

I wish she hadn't hid her diabetes from the public. For many of us, the diagnosis was an answer to years of frustration about why we continued to gain weight when we tried everything to loose.