November is American Diabetes Month, a time to communicate the seriousness of diabetes and the importance of diabetes prevention and control.

For years, the American Diabetes Association has used this month as an opportunity to raise awareness of the disease and its serious complications. This November, the American Diabetes Association is asking:

“How will you Stop Diabetes? The future is in your hands.”

Nearly 24 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes.

Another 57 million Americans have pre-diabetes and are at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

The death rate from diabetes continues to climb. Since 1987, the death rate due to diabetes has increased by 45%, while the death rates due to cancer, heart disease, and stroke have declined.

Diabetes is a group of diseases characterized by high blood glucose levels that result from defects in the body’s ability to produce and/or use insulin. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes have different causes. Yet two factors are important in both.

• First, you must inherit a predisposition to the disease.
• Second, something in your environment must trigger diabetes.

Genes alone are not enough. Type 2 diabetes has a stronger genetic basis than Type 1, yet it also depends more on environmental factors. Families with a history of Type 2 diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for getting the disease but it only seems to matter in people living a Western lifestyle. Americans and Europeans eat too much fat and too little carbohydrate and fiber, and they get too little exercise.

To learn the truths about the myths of diabetes click on the following link:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-myths/

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