Lunch promotes diabetes awareness
It’s all about the numbers when diabetes is the diagnosis and survival is the goal. Those people living with the disease must be aware of and control their blood glucose numbers.
Today’s Lunch and Learn session at the Civic Center will be dedicated to ‘Diabetes: Know Your Numbers’ and the guest speaker will be Tonya Swoape from River Park Hospital.
In 2005, there were 20.8 million people in the United States with diabetes. However, of those, 6.2 million were undiagnosed. There are an additional 54 million Americans who have pre-diabetes.
Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both.
Diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death.
Early detection is key. However, many who remain undiagnosed do so because the symptoms of diabetes seem harmless, including frequent trips to the bathroom, unquenchable thirst and weight loss.
Other symptoms of diabetes include weakness and fatigue, tingling or numbness in hands, legs or feet, blurred vision, dry or itchy skin, frequent infections and bruises that take a long time to heal.
To diagnose diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test, or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test. Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform.
Types of diabetes:
‘ Type 1 ‘ The body’s immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells, the only cells in the body that make the hormone insulin that regulates blood glucose. People with type 1 diabetes must have insulin delivered by injection or a pump. This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults. However, the disease onset can occur at any age.
‘ Type 2 ‘ Those with type 2 diabetes are insulin-resistance, a disorder in which the cells do not use insulin properly. As the need for insulin rises, the pancreas gradually loses its ability to produce it. This form of diabetes is associated with older age, obesity, a family history of diabetes, a history of gestational diabetes, impaired glucose metabolism, physical inactivity, and race/ethnicity.
‘ Gestational diabetes ‘ Glucose intolerance diagnosed in some women during pregnancy. Women who develop gestational diabetes require treatment to normalize maternal blood glucose levels to avoid complications in the infant.
‘ Other types ‘ Diabetes resulting from specific genetic conditions, such as maturity-onset diabetes of youth, surgery, drugs, malnutrition, infections, and other illnesses.
‘ Pre-diabetes ‘ When a person’s blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
The cause of diabetes continues to be a mystery, though genetics and environmental factors, such as obesity and lack of exercise, appear to play roles. But everyone agrees proper treatment is important. Those with diabetes are encouraged to take their medication, watch their numbers, lose weight, eat well-balanced meals, and exercise.
Today’s session begins at 12:10 p.m. at the Civic Center and will last 40 minutes. Everyone is encouraged to bring a lunch and learn. The sessions are free.