Proving the old adage that life is like a box of chocolates—eventually, you’re gonna get diabetes—Tom Hanks revealed to David Letterman this week that he’s been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a problem which Hanks plans to live with as chummily as he does the rest of the human race. However, one thing will definitely change: You won’t be seeing Hanks gain or lose weight to play a role anymore. As he recently told The Guardian, all of the packing on of pounds for parts like his paunchy baseball manager in A League Of Their Own, or the dramatic loss of them for movies like Cast Away, “may have had something to do” with getting diabetes—a hypothesis that CBS News medical contributor Dr. Holly Phillips agrees with, saying that sort of thing makes it so “the equilibrium of the body is just completely off.”
And while Hanks admits he was already “genetically inclined” to get it, and that he wasn’t leading a totally healthy lifestyle even before he started the seesawing, the diagnosis means he’ll never again take an acting job where he has to gain or lose a significant amount of weight, so that’s that. You want Tom Hanks to live, right? Anyway, upon hearing the news, Robert Zemeckis sadly folded away his sequel screenplay Forrest Lump (Because He’s Full Of Chocolate Now).
[via E! Online]