Nutritionist Mellonie Furbert is a good example that even living on a strict diet doesn’t guarantee a life without health challenges.A vegetarian since her teens and a vegan for the last two years, Mrs Furbert was diagnosed with diabetes a decade ago, brought on by stress. Genetic predisposition played a part too, but with an even stricter diet and exercise, she now has it under control.“My stress level was really high and that was due to several factors...my father died, my children were going away to college and I was going through a divorce and all of that at the same time puts you in a very high stress level,” she revealed.“I’ve been diagnosed officially ten years, but I’ve been having the clinical symptoms at least six years before that and the doctors were in total denial because I wasn’t overweight, I ate well, I exercised. But now they know about pre-diabetes where they are looking at your HBA1C which looks at your blood sugars over a three-month period as opposed to a fasting.“The HBA1C tells you how well your body is responding to food, not just prior to the next meal. I can tell you my diet has changed dramatically. Even though I was a vegetarian I had to stop eating so much fruit. I had to be careful how much fruit I ate and how much vegetables I ate because everything turns to blood sugar, some faster than others, and fruit was my downfall.“Becoming a diabetic was a real adjustment for me, I really didn’t like being a diabetic. But I was able to keep it under control with medication initially but now I’ve been able to control it without medication since I’m vegan which is even more strict than a vegetarian. My last report is the best it’s ever been so I’ve done better on a vegan diet than with medication.”Since being diagnosed with diabetes, Mrs Furbert also lost her only sibling, brother Vernon (Brownie) Smith, which brought on more stress for her.“It opened up all of that again. I have to learn to put things in proper perspective,” said Mrs Furbert who has a family history of diabetes, cancer and hypertension. “When I became aware of stress contributing to me becoming a diabetic I had to learn de-stressing techniques.”Her brother was aged 50 when he died and her father Vernon, Sr, had just turned 60 and retired just a week before he passed in 1994 following an illness.“I took off the week to spend with him in his retirement and he didn’t enjoy one week of retirement,” she said. “We are all going to die but I want to have quality of life for as long as I can. Your lifestyle can affect the degree to which it affects you. Genetics contributes about 25 to 30 percent and lifestyle contributes about 60 percent.’Mrs Furbert has been a Government nutritionalist since 1991, helping to promote health in the public sector. Most recently she collaborated with other health partners to release the EastWell Bermuda Dietary Guidelines and the EatWell Plate.“The dietary guidelines looks at each food group and our eating habits and what we need to change in order to see change,” said Mrs Furbert who recently won a CMO Public Health award for her work as a health practitioner. “The main thing is it has to be simplistic enough for children to understand but meaningful enough to educate the public about prevention, repair and maintenance of chronic diseases.“The 2004 health survey revealed that Bermudians eat a lot of convenient foods, food that are usually high in salt, sugar and fat. That gave us an idea on why we have a high incidence of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in our community. Looking at our population it is interesting to know that quite a number of people are related so the genetic pool says that you have genetically a predisposition to those things.”Mrs Furbert said that people are not as active as past generations and with different diets are gaining weight more easily. “Add to it the environmental factor of consuming foods that lead to those things, and the fact that physically we have become technologically savvy that we don’t have to move very much and that has been a disadvantage for us bodily,” she said.Mrs Furbert has also discovered that she is allergic to wheat which made eating even more challenging for the vegan. “At a relative’s home I had a negative response as a result of eating wheat,” she revealed.“It made me aware of how many products wheat is in, and me being a vegan I am now on an even more limited diet. I’m glad I’m a dietitian and know how to stay healthy. It’s quite eye opening because it’s one thing to tell people they need to do it, but when you’ve got to do it yourself it is another thing.“One of the hardest thing is being willing to make that change. For me I want to live, but I also want to live with a quality of life. People think I’m a rare species because I’m willing to do whatever it takes. When I can’t change things I have to know who is in control. God is in control. One of the de-stressors is knowing something good is going to come out of this bad situation and someone more powerful is in control.”