November is National Diabetes Awareness Month.
According to the American Diabetes Association, 17 million Americans have diabetes, yet one in three people do not know it.
While this illness is very preventable and treatable, undiagnosed diabetes in adults is still a major problem, said James Lane, M.D., an assistant professor in the department of internal medicine, section of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism.
“Fifteen to 20 percent of all the money we spend on health care is related to diabetes,” Dr. Lane said. “Physicians at all levels of care come into contact with persons who have this disease.”
As president of the local ADA chapter, Dr. Lane would like everyone to take time this month to become educated about this life-threatening disease, the chances for developing it and how to prevent or manage it.
“A lot of people don’t have the prominent symptoms of diabetes — such as high blood sugar, marked fatigue, increased thirst — and so they don’t know that they have it,” Dr. Lane said.
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Pre-diabetes is equivalent to impaired glucose intolerance. Intervention at this point is extremely important, he said, to keep a person’s condition from worsening. People at risk for developing diabetes can determine if they are pre-diabetic by taking the impaired glucose intolerance test.
Once it is determined a person has diabetes there are ways to manage the disease, Dr. Lane said. “The most important thing is knowing you have it and addressing it, before complications develop,” he said.
Complications can range from heart disease and stroke to retinopathy or eye disease and nerve damage.
The most common form of diabetes is Type II, Dr. Lane said, which is directly related to the growth of obesity in the United States and most commonly diagnosed in minorities. In Type II diabetes the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin.
Insulin takes sugar, a basic fuel for the cells in the body, from the blood into the cells. When the natural order of things is interrupted glucose builds up in the blood and can cause two problems: right away the cells are starved for energy and over time damage can occur to the heart, kidneys, nerves or eyes.
“All of these things are preventable,” Dr. Lane said.
There is a simple self-test you can take right now to determine your risk for developing this life-threatening disease. Go to the American Diabetes Association homepage at http://diabetes.org/homepage.jsp and click on “Take the Diabetes Risk Test” in the far right column. After answering the seven questions, click “Calculate” at the bottom of the page to see your results.