The huge burden of diabetes - and the rest of the story

"It's important to know if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, because there's so much you can do to preserve your health," said Joanne Gallivan, M.S., R.D., director of the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) for the NIH. "You should talk to your health care professional about your risk. If your blood glucose is high but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes, losing a modest amount of weight and increasing physical activity will greatly lower your risk of getting type 2 diabetes. If you already have diabetes, controlling your blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol will prevent or delay the complications of diabetes."

To which I can only add: "Amen."

I certainly hope that the media picks up this story and publicizes it widely: Diabetes is common, and growing more common as the problem of obesity continues expanding. But the rest of the story, not described in the survey results, is that diabetes, although potentially disabling and deadly, is controllable. And that's the real message that we have to get out to the world.