The New York Times just reported the American Diabetes Association is remixing its diabetes messaging strategy to take on a more serious tone.

Hey ADA, it's about time. I've witnessed my family face type 1 diabetes for many, many years. It's not a cakewalk.

You simply can't tip toe around diabetes, T1 or T2. They're both deadly, mired in serious complications and excessively complicated to manage.

Cardiovascular disease, limb-losing neuropathy, blindness, stroke, erectile dysfunction, expensive medical bills, kidney disease, a lifetime sentence -- the list goes on.

I can't tell you how many people have minimized my brothers' and my parents' type 1 diagnosis, ignorantly stating, "It's treatable with insulin, right? At least it's not terminal." They haven't seen hypoglycemic unawareness up close. They don't know what it's like to see blood sugars swing out of control for no apparent reason. They don't know how gut-wrenching it feels to watch your brother suffer -- 30+ years of type 1 diabetes takes its toll on a guy.

Okay, so the ADA's recent focus groups reveal people think cancer and heart disease are much more serious than diabetes. That's not news to me, I've been hearing that attitude for years. Now the ADA will pepper their Prevention and Hope message with a little cajun -- they're including diabetes has Deadly consequences. Yes, it sure does. And Deadly has become personal for an estimated eight percent of Americans.