November is Diabetes Awareness Month. The Wright State Physicians endocrinology team with the internal medicine office shares the following important diabetes information.
Diabetes is a health condition that affects how the body turns food into energy. The body breaks down food into sugar (glucose) and releases it into the bloodstream, signaling the pancreas to release insulin. Insulin acts like a key to let the blood sugar into the body’s cells for use as energy. With diabetes, the body does not produce insulin at all (type 1 diabetes), or does not produce as much insulin as it should, or use it as well as it should (type 2 diabetes). Gestational diabetes develops in pregnant women who have never had diabetes.
- In 2019 diagnosed cases of diabetes in the U.S. exceeded 37 million, for people of ALL ages.
Prediabetes is a health condition in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. A person with prediabetes is at higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
- In 2019 among U.S. adults more than one in three, 96 million, had prediabetes. Of people over 65 years, it’s one in four.
- Among people aged 12 to 18, about one in five have prediabetes.
Diabetes screening criteria for asymptotic adults…
- Consider testing if overweight or obese, with one or more of these risk factors…
• First-degree relative with diabetes
• High-risk race/ethnicity
• Hypertension
• High cholesterol
• History of cardiovascular disease
• Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)*
• Physically inactive
• Diagnosed with prediabetes
- HIV (screen annually)
- Prediabetic (screen annually)
- Gestational diabetes (screen lifelong every 3 years)
- All others, test at age 35 every 3 years if results are normal, more frequently depending on results and risk status
Learn more about our internal medicine office. Some internists are accepting new patients.
*Our OB/GYN office provides care for PCOS. Many providers are accepting new patients.
Call 937.245.7200 to schedule an appointment.
