The Adams-Brown Diabetes Education Coalition (ABDEC) wants to remind you that November is National Diabetes Month, and that good care and management can make the difference between having a healthier life or struggling with serious complications. Remember— diabetes is a long-lasting health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. If you have diabetes, your body has trouble keeping your blood sugar at a normal level.
How does this happen? Normally, the part of your body called the pancreas makes a hormone called insulin. Insulin helps the sugar in your blood to move from your bloodstream into your body cells. This is how your cells get nourishment (energy) to stay healthy. When you have diabetes, your pancreas is either no longer making enough insulin, OR your body prevents the insulin you do make from working the right way (this is called insulin resistance). So with less insulin, less sugar can move into your cells, and too much blood sugar stays in your bloodstream. Over time, this can cause serious health problems like heart disease, vision loss, and kidney damage. Therefore, if you have diabetes, keeping your blood sugar levels in a normal range is very important.
There are three main types of diabetes—type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (which is diabetes that can occur while someone is pregnant).
Type 1 diabetes usually starts in children or young adults. It’s thought to be caused by the body attacking itself (or “autoimmune” reaction). With type 1 diabetes, you usually know you have it pretty quickly as you can feel quite ill, and you need to take insulin every day to survive and control it.
Type 2 diabetes usually devclops over many years and is usually diagnosed in adults, but more and more children, teens, and young adults are developing type 2. With type 2 diabetes, your body might still be producing insulin, but it’s not using it well and/or it might not be producing enough. People with type 2 might not have signs or symptoms of having it for quite a while, so getting a blood sugar test is important if you are at risk. Type 2 risk factors include being overweight, having a parent, brother, or sister with type 2 diabetes, being 45 years of age or older, and being physically active less than three times per week. Sometimes you can control type 2 diabetes with a healthy diet and exercise alone; sometimes you will also need medicine to better help you to control your blood sugar level.
Gestational diabetes occurs in some pregnant women who have never before had diabetes. It usually goes away in the woman after her baby is born, but that woman will have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes later in life. And her baby will be more likely to be overweight as a child or teen and to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.
You might have also heard about (or know someone who has) “prediabetes”. With this condition, your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. While prediabetes puts someone at a higher risk for heart disease and stroke, modest weight loss and regular physical activity can prevent or delay getting type 2 diabetes.
So why do we call diabetes an epidemic? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. about 38 million people now have diabetes—that’s about one in every ten people. And of these folks, one in every five people don’t know that they have it! In the last 20 years, the number of people with diabetes has more than doubled. Small wonder that diabetes is the eighth leading cause of death and also the Number One cause of kidney failure, foot and leg amputations, and adult blindness. And besides the physical toll that diabetes takes on lives, it also takes a very large national financial toll—like $413 billion YEARLY—with medical costs, lost work, and lost wages for those with diabetes. Medical costs are more than twice as high for those with diabetes as for those who do not.
The good news is that diabetes itself doesn’t cause severe complications like heart disease— out-of-control diabetes causes complications. The Adams-Brown Diabetes Education Coalition wants to remind you that the earlier you have your diabetes detected, and the better you manage your diabetes and keep your blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible, the less likely you are to get eye, heart, kidney, & other health problems down the road.
So if you have not been tested for type 2 diabetes and you’re at risk, a simple blood test (a fasting blood glucose test or an “A1C” test) will let you know if you have it. Remember—with type 2 diabetes, you might not have any symptoms for quite awhile, but it can still produce damage to your body—so detection is very important for good management and control.
Suggestions and tips for taking care of your diabetes if you have it: Manage your A1C, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels (ask your health care team what your goals should be for these numbers). Follow a healthy eating plan—the Diabetes Plate Method works well for a lot of people. Make physical activity part of your regular routine—move more! Learn to manage stress—try deep breathing, gardening, taking a walk, doing yoga, or listening to your favorite music. Take your medicines as prescribed by your doctor. And if you use tobacco, stop smoking or using other tobacco products (you can start now by visiting smokefree.gov online).
If you want more information about diabetes and how to manage it, the CDC’s website (https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes ) and the American Diabetes Association’s website (https://www.diabetes.org) are good places to start. You might also want to consider entering a formal Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) program for more intense one-on-one diabetes education. Currently HealthSource of Ohio has such a program locally available at its Mt. Orab and Georgetown primary care sites in Brown County.
The Adams-Brown Diabetes Education Coalition also has a Facebook page (https://tinyurl.com/47rff7j7) with numerous educational posts (generally updated every Tuesday and Sunday) on various diabetes topics, including diabetes-friendly recipes, cooking videos, and healthy eating tips. You might also want to attend an Adams-Brown Sugar Helpers diabetes support group meeting. This group now meets every second Monday of the month from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. at the Adams County Regional Medical Center in Seaman. Meetings are free and all are welcome. Meetings typically include speakers, diet and exercise suggestions, recipe sharing and fellowship, and/or occasionally a diabetes-friendly snack. For more questions about the Sugar Helpers Group, please call the Brown County Health Department at (937) 378-6892 or Adams County Health Department at (937) 544-5547.
So remember—diabetes is a serious disease, but with the right information, help from your health care provider, and the support of family and friends, you can control it for a longer and healthier life!
