Tom Hanks Has Diabetes, Just Like 8.3 Percent Of Us

Last night on The Late Show with David Letterman, Tom Hanks revealed that he has been living with type 2 diabetes. The actor, who stars in the upcoming Somalian pirate drama Captain Phillips, explained that his drastic on-screen weight fluctuations may have been a factor. For Castaway Hanks lost 55 pounds, while in A League of Their Own he gained 30. His doctor told him that he if he could get back down to his high school weight, however, he would remain healthy. "And I said to her, 'Well, I'm gonna have Type 2 diabetes,'" he told Letterman. “There was no way I was gonna weigh what I weighed in high school. I was 96 pounds.”

Of course, Hanks is just one of many people who have recently been touched by the diabetes epidemic. Globally, an estimated 371 million people suffer from the disease. In the US alone, 25.8 million children and adults in the United States are afflicted, according to the American Diabetes Association. That's 8.3 of our total population, roughly equivalent to the number of people who live in Texas. Type-2 diabetes, to remind you, is often preventable through changes in lifestyle and diet.

Still, Hanks is a realist. "Something's going to kill us all, Dave," he said. (NY Daily News)