World Diabetes Day

The figures for 2007
There are 23.6 million children and adults in the United States, or 7.8% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 17.9 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 5.7 million people (or nearly one quarter) are unaware that they have the disease.


I have done diabetes education for the last 8 years of my career. These numbers have gone up at epidemic proportions. What I've seen in my personal experience? My patients who are newly diagnosed with Type 2 are now in their 30's instead of their 60's.
Unfortunately diabetes is a disease that silently creeps up on many people and does it 's damage without obvious symptoms. Every week I deal with the shock,denial,depression,and anger with the new diagnosis.
Most of the time people don't recognize or know what the symptoms are so I'm going to post them here

Some diabetes symptoms include:



* Frequent urination
* Excessive thirst
* Extreme hunger
* Unusual weight loss
* Increased fatigue
* Irritability
* Blurry vision

What makes you at risk? The two biggest factors for Type 2 are family history and excessive weight(primarily abdominal fat). What I tell my patients is that you can't do anything about the genetics but there is alot you can do to change the weight through lifestyle changes. Is it easy? Absolutely not!
Is it necessary? If you want to delay or prevent the diagnosis...yes.