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Alert Day
March 27th is American Diabetes Alert Day. This is an annual, one-day call-to-action that is held on the fourth Tuesday of March. The purpose of ADA is to raise awareness that diabetes is a serious disease and urges people to find out if they are at risk.
Diabetes is when your glucose (sugar) is too high. You always have glucose in your system because the body needs it for energy, but too much in the blood is not good for your health. This is a silent disease, in that people can have diabetes and not even know it. This is why American Diabetes Alert Day is so important.
There are two types of diabetes. Type 1 develops when the body's immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells, which make the hormone insulin that regulates blood glucose. To survive, people with type 1 must have their insulin injected or pumped into the body. This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults. There is no known way to prevent type 1 diabetes
Type 2 is the second kind of diabetes. It usually starts as insulin resistance in which cells do not use insulin properly. Type 2 is associated with older age, obesity, family history, physical inactivity and ethnicity. People with type 2 can control their blood glucose by following a healthy meal plan, exercising, and taking oral medication. Glucose intolerance can also be diagnosed in some women during pregnancy, called Gestational diabetes.
What makes you at risk?
• Having high blood pressure (at or above 130/800)
• Family history of diabetes
• Being overweight
• Physical inactivity
• Giving birth to a baby weighing more than 9 pounds at birth
Want to find out if you're at risk?
Take the RISK TEST at
http://diabetes.org/risk-test.jsp