Free educational diabetes program offered in March, April – YourGV.com

The public is invited to attend a free educational program on preventing and reversing diabetes to be held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on March 19, 26 through April 2, 9, 16, 23 at the Fairfield Inn & Suites located at 1120 Bill Tuck Highway in South Boston.

Persons may pre-register by leaving their name and number by calling 1-877-695-3377. Someone will make contact to confirm registration.

The free six weeks Diabetes Preventing and Reversial Seminar is sponsored by Emmanuel Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Type 2 Diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate. And yet there is nothing catching about it. People cannot get it from anyone else.

Rather, the health care community now knows that Type 2 Diabetes is caused by the things people do, their lifestyle.

Identifying and connecting with people at high risk of Type 2 Diabetes is critical to preventing it.

One check of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions website for the latest updates indicates for the first time, a big shift has taken place from just reporting on efforts of treating the disease to efforts related to preventing it.

Below is some of the information to be gleaned from their website.

Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the United States in 2013, but this may be underreported, according to the CDC. While it is more easily identified as the cause of blindness, lower-limb amputations and kidney failure, doctors are not able to easily identify diabetes as the cause of heart attacks or strokes. So, while its reported that a person died from a stroke, the real cause of death may have been the diabetes that caused the stroke.

The rate of new cases of diagnosed diabetes is still very high. More than 29 million U.S. adults have diabetes, and 25 percent of those do not know that they have it.

Furthermore, more than a third of American adults around 86 million have prediabetes, and 90 percent of them dont know it. Looking at the County Health Rankings (www.countyhealthrankings.org) provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Halifax County has a diabetes rate of 15 percent. The average for the State of Virginia is 9 percent and is one of the top performers in the U.S.

In 2016, the CDC partnered with the American Diabetes Association, American Medical Association and the Ad Council to start running public service announcements (PSAs). This is the first national prediabetes awareness campaign.

These PSAs are reaching millions of people who may be at risk and are encouraging them to take a risk assessment to find out their status. These risks include being overweight, being 45 years or older, having a family history of Type 2 diabetes and being physically active less than three times a week. People who have one or more of these risk factors should talk to their doctor about getting their blood sugar tested or testing their Hemaglobin A1c.

The Mayo Clinic reports that if a person has prediabetes, the long-term damage of diabetes, especially to ones heart and circulation may already be starting.

Persons with prediabetes have an increased risk of Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease and stroke. For people living with diabetes, better health management can increase lifespan and improve the quality of life. Or through lifestyle education and coaching, a person may be able to reverse diabetes and again live diabetes-free.

Coming to South Boston in March is the Grundy Preventing and Reversing Diabetes Seminar, the program reveals that many changes have been made to peoples lifestyle in the past that have contributed to diabetes.

If one knows what those changes are, it will empower them to make better choices that will lead to better health and disease reversal.

Originally posted here:
Free educational diabetes program offered in March, April - YourGV.com