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How Patti LaBelle Changed Her Lifestyle After a Surprising Diagnosis

Season 5 Episode 505
Aired on 11/22/2015 | CC tv-14
While performing one night in Albany, New York, music icon Patti LaBelle says she passed out and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed Patti with diabetes, the same disease that contributed to her mother's death.

After receiving this surprising news many years ago, Patti, a bestselling cookbook author, sweet potato pie queen and self-described cheesecake addict, took charge of her health and made drastic changes to her diet. "You start thinking about the things that you've been doing in your life, like cooking food improperly, like frying the whole chicken and eating the whole chicken," she says. "Everything I loved I had to modify now. I had to start broiling, baking the chicken."

Patti changed her lifestyle, started exercising and lost weight. She even showed off her slim figure on a 1999 episode of the Oprah Show. "Most people are walking around with diabetes, and they don't have a clue that they might have it because they don't get tested," she says.

Watch as Patti shares some warning signs of diabetes.

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