Diabetes Prevention News
Program striving to avert diabetes
Participants of the local New York State YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program have learned healthier lifestyles and have lowered their chances of becoming diabetic.
The physician-referral-based program reviewed 16 weekly tips — among them healthy eating, being physically active, managing stress and staying motivated — that participants can use to prevent hearing bad news from their doctor. All participants are considered prediabetic, when blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
According to the American Diabetes Association, normal fasting blood glucose is below 100 milligrams per deciliter. A person with prediabetes has a fasting blood glucose level from 100 mg/dl to 125 mg/dl. If the blood glucose level rises to 126 mg/dl or above, a person has diabetes.
“You have to make yourself and your health a priority,” said Michelle L. Graham, Watertown Family YMCA wellness director and coordinator of the Diabetes Prevention Program. “You make yourself a priority, and it’ll pay off.”
That was her message earlier this month during the last class in the course, which is held at the agency’s downtown branch, 119 Washington St. The program encourages participants to lose 5 percent to 7 percent of their weight, maintain that level and participate in regular physical activity.
Each participant has agreed to help with research for the national Diabetes Prevention Program. The local program will gather data in an effort to have diabetes prevention reimbursable through insurance, Mrs. Graham said.
“This is the way health care needs to go,” she said.
Patricia A. Davis, Watertown, said that during the last week of the program, she reached her 7 percent weight loss goal. She returns to her physician next week to find out how her blood glucose level has changed. It was 109 mg/dl about 18 weeks ago.
The 73-year-old said she has scaled back her candy consumption and instead satisfies that craving with fruits and vegetables. Exercising at the Y a few days a week also has helped her shed pounds.
Since some family members found out they had Type-2 diabetes when they were in their 70s, Mrs. Davis said, she wanted to be proactive and stop the disease before it became a diagnosis.
“It scares me, because I tried to lose weight on my own,” she said. “I knew that was a part of getting diabetes, being overweight, although I wasn’t extremely overweight.”
Mrs. Davis and many other program participants said that to help decrease glucose levels, they have paid more attention to what kinds of food they’re eating as well as the amount of fat in the food.
With that, Mrs. Graham said, participants walked away with exactly what she wanted them to have: a heightened sense of awareness. Now, the group will meet once a month at the Y for the next 12 months to make sure members are sticking to their diabetes-prevention plans.
Hundreds of Diabetes Advocates Arrive in Washington, DC to Urge Congress to Stop Diabetes®
More than 200 volunteer advocates from the American Diabetes Association will meet with their Members of Congress this week, to urge them to support federal funding for diabetes research and prevention programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Federal funding in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 for diabetes is critical in our nation’s response to this epidemic. The diabetes advocates will also ask their Members of Congress to join the Congressional Diabetes Caucus, which acts to educate Members about diabetes and to support legislation that improves diabetes research, education and treatment.
Advocates are coming to Washington, DC for Call to Congress, the Association’s premier national advocacy effort. This year’s Call to Congress is being held March 9 – March 11, 2011. Attendees will include children and adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, family members of individuals with diabetes, researchers and other health care professionals. All are committed to advocacy efforts at the local, state and national levels.
“Call to Congress brings diabetes advocates from across the country together in the movement to Stop Diabetes and provides them with the opportunity to tell our federal government how important it is to fight this deadly epidemic,” said John Griffin, Jr., Chair of the Board, American Diabetes Association. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime unless our country changes its course. Congress must provide the funding and leadership necessary to invest in research and ultimately save lives.”
Specifically, Association advocates will meet with Members on March 10th to urge Congress to provide $2.209 billion in FY 2012 funding for diabetes research through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at NIH. Advocates will also ask Congress to support and prioritize vital diabetes prevention activities at the CDC through the efforts of the agency’s Division of Diabetes Translation in next year’s budget. Additionally, advocates will call on Congress to provide $80 million in funding from the Prevention and Public Health Fund that was included in the health care reform statute to scale up the proven, community-based National Diabetes Prevention Program.
Diabetes is a growing epidemic and is taking a devastating physical, emotional and financial toll on our country. Nearly 26 million Americans are living with diabetes and an additional 79 million are estimated to have prediabetes. The national price tag for diabetes is at an astounding $174 billion per year and that cost is estimated to almost triple in the next 25 years. Factoring in the additional costs of undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes and gestational diabetes brings the total cost of diabetes to $218 billion.
Wyoming Health Department program supports primary prevention programs aimed at prediabetes
The Wyoming Department of Health’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Program is now supporting primary prevention programs aimed at prediabetes.
Prediabetes is a condition where individuals have elevated blood sugar levels due to insulin resistance, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. If the condition is left untreated, people with prediabetes will likely develop Type 2 diabetes.
People with prediabetes have an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke.
Nearly 13 percent of Wyoming adults report having diabetes or prediabetes.
For the department’s new prevention effort, hospitals at Sheridan, Casper and Laramie are serving as pilot sites for an intensive lifestyle balance program aimed at patients with prediabetes.
Family Goes to Capitol Hill to Support Funding for Diabetes Research, Prevention
One Potomac family is helping to make sure diabetes has a voice and is taking to Capitol Hill to spread the message.
Barbara Weckstein Kaplowitz — a Potomac resident who has been a diabetic for 44 years — is joining more than 200 other volunteer advocates from the American Diabetes Association to encourage Congress to support federal funding in Fiscal Year 2012 for diabetes research and prevention programs. Kaplowitz, her husband, Brett— who sits on the Washginton, D.C., metro leadership council for American diabetes—and their two children, Scott, 16, and Molly, 17, are participating in the American Diabetes Association Call to Congress, which began on Wednesday and continue until Friday.
“What this means to me personally is that I can do my part to make sure the government will continue funding research,” Kaplowitz said. “Diabetes impacts me every day, so I’d love to see it go away in my lifetime and, if not in my lifetime, I’d like to see a cure in my children’s lifetime.”
Almost 26 million Americans are living with diabetes and an additional 79 million are estimated to have prediabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Kaplowitz and other advocates will meet with members of Congress on Thursday to ask them to provide more than $2.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2012 funding for diabetes research through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, according to a release from the American Diabetes Association.
Also, the American Diabetes Association advocates will request that Congress give $80 million of funding to help with the National Diabetes Prevention Program.
This isn’t the Kaplowitz’s first time helping raise awareness about diabetes. The family has raised about $150,000 through local fundraisers in an effort to help find a cure for diabetes, Kaplowitz said.
For the past six years, the family has hosted a fundraiser at California Tortilla where a portion of the proceeds go to help find a cure for diabetes. Also, over the last eight years the family has participated in the Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes.
Support from other local families and the community at Walt Whitman High School — where both her children are students — have helped make events a success, Kaplowitz said.
“For me, it’s important to have my children see what an impact an individual can make no only in the community, but also when they make a call to Congress,” she said.