Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary Of Comprehensive Care

Lagasse and Other Celebrity Chefs Share their Unique Culinary Creations as the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center Celebrates its 10th Anniversary of Comprehensive Care

NEW YORK (Oct. 28, 2008) – In an evening that began with the diabetes-friendly culinary delights of some the country’s most famous chefs, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center celebrated its 10th anniversary as a comprehensive diabetes center that cares for some 10,000 adults and children worldwide.

Donors, patients, doctors and friends of the Berrie Center celebrated the anniversary at the Metropolitan Club on Tuesday, Oct. 28, in an evening that featured diabetes-friendly appetizers created by celebrity chef, restaurateur, and TV personality Emeril Lagasse and five other noted New York chefs. They were Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef cookbooks; Christian Hull, Executive Chef, Bayonne Golf Club; Anthony Goncalves; Chef/Owner, 42 and Peniche, John Santiago, Executive Chef, Columbia University; and; Ed Brown, Chef/Owner, eighty one.

Chef Lagasse with Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center co-directors Robin Goland, M.D., and Rudolph Leibel, M.D.

Emeril Presents Diabetes-Friendly Recipe

Lagasse has called his cuisine “New New Orleans,” describing it as local Louisiana ingredients used in new and different ways. Recently he has begun focusing on using more healthful ingredients that can be accommodated in the diets of people living with diabetes. The healthy appetizer prepared for this special evening can easily be incorporated into the diet of a person who is managing diabetes, the nation’s fifth leading killer. Diabetes is a disease in which the body’s failure to regulate glucose, or blood sugar, can lead to fatal complications. It affects about 24 million children and adults in the United States, or 8 percent of the population, according to the American Diabetes Association.

“Having diabetes doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to start eating special foods or stick to a rigid, complicated diet plan of foods that aren’t tasty,” says Robin Goland, M.D., co-director of the Berrie Center. “For most people, a diabetes diet must be individualized and include a rich variety of foods that please the palate, such as the dishes served here tonight. We’re thrilled that Emeril and these amazing chefs helped us celebrate our comprehensive approach to treating diabetes and to have them create appetizers that people with diabetes – and everyone else – can eat.”

Angelica Berrie, president of the Russell Berrie Foundation. Angelica Berrie Honored

Angelica Berrie, president of the Russell Berrie Foundation, was honored for her generosity and support at the gala. In March, the Russell Berrie Foundation donated $28 million to Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, as part of a focused effort to provide comprehensive care to diabetes patients while working, through concentrated research initiatives, toward better treatment.

The late Russell Berrie, founder of Russ Berrie and Company, one of the world’s leading suppliers of toys and gifts, helped found the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center of Columbia University Medical Center. It is named after Mr. Berrie’s mother, who, like Mr. Berrie, had diabetes. For his wife, Angelica Berrie, these gifts keep alive her late husband’s dreams of finding a cure for diabetes.

In March, the Russell Berrie Foundation donated $28 million to Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, as part of a focused effort to provide comprehensive care to diabetes patients while working, through concentrated research initiatives, toward a cure.

This generous gift continues the Berrie Foundation’s exceptional commitment to diabetes research and treatment. Spanning ten years, the Foundation’s total support exceeds $63 million.

Berrie Center Ready Poised for the Future

Chef Lagasse ladles his oven-roasted Romanita tomato soup for a line of hungry guests. The only comprehensive, multidisciplinary diabetes center in New York City, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center integrates clinical care, research and education and is recognized nationally and internationally for excellence and innovation in the field of diabetes and its associated disorders.

The clinical program of the Berrie Center cares for adults and children with diabetes from diverse socioethnic backgrounds and includes one of the largest pediatric diabetes programs, one of the largest number of patients with adolescent-onset type 2 diabetes, and one of the largest insulin pump programs in the country.

Since opening in 1998, the Berrie Center has been a leader in the recruitment of minority research subjects into diabetes clinical trials. The Center’s research efforts, led by more than 50 Columbia University scientists, focus on the causes and cures of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, obesity, and the prevention of complications from the disease.

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Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, in medical and health sciences education, and in patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit, non-sectarian hospital, with 2,242 beds. The Hospital has nearly a million patient visits in a year, including more than 220,000 visits to its emergency departments — more than any other area hospital.

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Angelica Berrie, Berrie Center, Executive Chef, New York City, Russell Berrie Foundation