Healthy Tips Video: Diabetes Prevention

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Beth Cecil, and I'm here with the Owensboro Health Healthpark. I'm here today to talk about our diabetes prevention program.

Did you know that 96 million Americans today have pre-diabetes? That is more than one in three. So look to your right and look to your left because probably, if there's three of you, one of you has likely got pre-diabetes.

Now, we don't always know that we have pre-diabetes because it doesn't show a lot of symptoms. However, it can be very serious. It can lead to things like heart disease, stroke. And anywhere from 50% to 70% of the people with pre-diabetes will end up developing type 2 diabetes.

But there is some really good news. You can prevent or delay your developing diabetes and even reverse pre-diabetes by making just some simple lifestyle changes. Things like, watching your diet and just reducing the sugar, the fat, the calories just a little bit. Some moderate weight loss. Just 5% to 7%. And upping your physical activity to at least 30 minutes a day.

Those are just some really simple lifestyle changes that you can make. Those small lifestyle changes can have a big impact on your risk for developing diabetes.

So where do you learn? How do you do this? The Diabetes Prevention Program is a national program that has been studied for more than 10 years. And it found that people that do these lifestyle changes, such as healthy eating moderate, weight loss, and increasing their physical activity reduce their risk of developing diabetes by as much as 58%. It was 71% for those over the age of 60.

How do if you're at risk for pre-diabetes? How do if you have pre-diabetes? Those at risk are people that are over the age of 45. If you have a family history, such as a parent or a sibling that has diabetes, if you are female and you had gestational diabetes, or if you're physically inactive. Those all place you at higher risk.

There's also a really simple test that you can take. It's our pre-diabetes risk test. And that will walk you through just a few questions and give you a score. If you score 5 or higher, you may want to check with your health care provider, maybe have them test your blood sugar, because you may be at risk. You may have pre-diabetes.

Our diabetes prevention program is offered several times a year here at the Healthpark, both to the community and to our own team members. And so if you would like more information about that, please give us a call here at the Healthpark at 270-688-4804.

Thank you, and have a great day.