diagnosed with diabetes despite the healthy regime he follows. "I've been studying martial arts for about 20-odd years and I've never been sick,'' he said. "All of a sudden, I started getting tired, feeling run-down and I had a pain in my legs. But I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.'' Mr.

Simmons said that he was aware of diabetes and its symptoms -- mainly because his company, Tucker's Tees, was painting the t-shirts for the epidemiology project -- but did not consider himself a likely candidate. "I was the least likely person to get it. I'm not overweight, there's very little sugar in my diet, I'm a vegetarian and I train every day. But I was drinking a lot of iced tea which has so much sugar but I didn't realise it. Also, my father has diabetes although I didn't know it at the time. "I didn't know what was wrong with me. I started having this pain in my chest and my fingers felt numb and I thought I was having a heart attack so I went to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for treatment. They did all these tests and found out that my blood sugar level was 490. For a normal person, it's 80. I was 490 and they didn't tell me. They just told me to go and see my doctor.'' Suspicious, Mr. Simmons said he went to see Debbie Jones, co-ordinator of the Diabetes Counselling and Education Centre at the Hospital and founder of the Bermuda Diabetes Association. "I asked Debbie about it and she told me to go and visit my doctor. I got such a shock once it was confirmed. It really upset me. Diabetes makes you very irritable and angry but I'm OK now. I'm stable and my sugar is down. I watch what I eat, especially my portion sizes; I run every morning and every night to keep it under control and I watch my diet although I might have a little cake or something from time to time. The thing is I think, everybody should know the symptoms. Everybody should go to the seminars held at the Centre, and get educated on diabetes, its symptoms and what it can do to you.'' PHOTO Martial artist Kent Simmons HEALTH HTH