Diabetes and Me

Being diagnosed with diabetes can be rather scary, but overtime the fears will past. Having to learn to live with diabetes can be daunting initially, but once you become more educated about the condition it becomes less cumbersome. When you are first diagnosed many feel as though initially your life is over, and you will never be able to eat any more sweets, or live a normal life.  You just have to remember to enjoy the “fun” in moderation, and live a healthy lifestyle. Diabetes is not a “death sentence” it is however a serious a chronic condition that affects many Americans, especially people of color.

Diabetes Mellitus, or simply diabetes, describes a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood glucose (blood sugar), either because the body is not producing enough insulin, or is not responding to the insulin produced. Due to the complicated nature of diabetes, staying healthy can be very labor intensive.  You must check your blood sugar often, take medications, count carbs at every meal, and even measure insulin to balance what you eat and how active you are. .

More than 25.8 million people in the United States (8.3% of the population) have diabetes. Of these, 7.0 million have undiagnosed diabetes. In 2010, about 1.9 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people aged 20 years or older and if current trends continue, 1 of 3 U.S. adults will have diabetes by 2050.[1]

The burden of diabetes is much greater for minority populations than the white population. For example, 10.8 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, 10.6 percent of Mexican Americans, and 9.0 percent of American Indians have diabetes, compared with 6.2 percent of whites.[2] Certain minorities also have much higher rates of diabetes-related complications and death, in some instances by as much as 50 percent more than the total population.[3]

HPC works diligently to combat the complications of diabetes among the communities we serve thru health promotion, education and intervention programs. One such program is PA cAARds! a statewide multidisciplinary training model used to educate health care professionals and para-professionals in evidence based interventions to address the dual risk of diabetes and tobacco use while linking them to valuable community-based resources. Through BE A BRIDGE and PA cAARds!, HPC has worked to address tobacco and chronic disparities through integrated evidence based strategies since 2007 training and building the capacity of more than 1,000 individuals representing more than 473 organizations in over  80% of Pennsylvania counties.

To learn more about HPC and its programs visit our website at www.hpcpa.org

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[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2010. Atlanta,GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008.

[2] Mokdad AH, Ford ES, Bowman BA, et al. Diabetes trends in the U.S.: 1990-1998. Diabetes Care 000;23(9):1278-83.

[3] Carter JS, Pugh JA, Monterrosa A. Non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in minorities in the United States. Ann Intern Med 1996;125(3):221-32. (AHRQ Grant HS07397).

ADA. (nod). Retrieved from http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/know-your-rights/how-to-get-help/success-stories.html

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healingwell.com/library/diabetes/info5.asp