Simple. In the first place to honour my parents. In 1946, Reginald and Wendy Noakes emigrated from the UK with my recently born sister, Amanda (Mandy), shortly after the end of the Second World War, to start a new life in Harare, Zimbabwe. My father’s business acumen allowed us to move to Cape Town in 1954 where I was educated and have lived ever since.
Late in his life my father developed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). My conventional medical training taught me to believe that T2DM is a progressive, remorseless disease so I was of little assistance to him in his final illness.
Now that I too have T2DM, perhaps as part of my genetic inheritance, this defeatist attitude of hopelessness is simply no longer true. T2DM can be prevented and, if caught early enough, can be reversed in some.
My family and I have started The Noakes Foundation so that we can play a small part in stopping the remorseless spreading of this unnecessary disease by raising funds to support nutritional research that makes a difference.
The Noakes Foundation will be granting research funding of more than a million Rand a year to ground-breaking projects that are critical to offset the T2DM, obesity and malaise epidemic of our times – there is no time to waste!
We are answering the following questions with our research – we want you to GET INVOLVED IN BEING PART OF THE ANSWERS!
- How do we correct the dietary errors of the past fifty years?
- How do we determine the optimal diet for individuals?
- How do we change individual eating and exercise patterns to prevent Type 2 Diabetes & minimise the effects of insulin resistance?
- How can we help everyone to eat better, to feel better and to live better lives?
Happy banting!
Prof. Noakes
