How Sweet It Isn't: It's Diabetes Awareness Month

What will cause 35 million heart attacks, 13 million strokes, 6 million episodes of kidney failure, 8 million instances of blindness or eye surgery, 2 million amputations, and 62 million deaths in the next 30 years?*

Diabetes.

In observance of American Diabetes Month, Healthline wants you to know that diabetes is something you can live without. Diabetes is a group of diseases that wreaks havoc on virtually every important body system. It develops when the body mistakenly attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin (type 1 diabetes), or when the pancreas gradually loses its ability to produce it (type 2 diabetes). Without insulin, glucose is shut out of cells, leaving them lifeless.

There is no way to prevent type 1 diabetes, but people who develop type 2 diabetes can make life-saving, lifestyle changes--eating a healthy diet, exercising, losing weight if overweight, controlling high blood pressure, managing high cholesterol, taking insulin or oral medications as directed.

Complications of Diabetes

• Heart disease and stroke
• High blood pressure
• Amputations
• Dental disease
• Complications of pregnancy
• Coma
  
  

By the way, 6.2 million people don’t know they have diabetes.

*Source: American Diabetes Association