There’s a silent killer sneaking up on millions of Americans and thousands of Mississippians, and we aren’t doing much to stop it.
This killer comes in several forms, and with the exception of one, they all are preventable with diet and exercise.
This potentially life-threatening disease is a direct result of our inability to say no to desserts and all those tasty foods that are full of carbohydrates.
I’m talking about diabetes. It is estimated that more than 20.8 million Americans (according to the Centers for Disease Control) and approximately 346,500 Mississippians have the disease, Dr. Henry Flautt said Wednesday at the Business Leader Roundtable at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Flautt said diabetes is the No. 1 health problem in Mississippi, and Leflore County leads all counties in the state with instances of the disease.
Diabetes is the leading cause of death in America, and it’s also costly to our pocketbooks.
It costs Mississippi alone $2 billion a year, Flautt said.
Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes. There also are those born with Type 1 diabetes, which is an auto immune disorder, and there’s gestational diabetes, which is associated with pregnancy.
I’m sure we all have family members and friends who are among the millions suffering from Type 2 diabetes — a disease that affects the body’s ability to produce and use insulin.
I don’t have diabetes yet, but with my family history, if I don’t take care of myself and my weight, I am destined to become a statistic.
I know all too well how diabetes can affect a person’s health and lead to their untimely death.
My favorite aunt died at 73 from complications associated with diabetes.
Aunt Flora Mae was a lively person, and as a youngster, I remember the two of us walking for miles every day so she could manage her weight. I would tag along, and she would teach me so many things about nature that I might never have learned otherwise.
But as she grew older and her health declined, the exercising stopped and her diabetes worsened.
She loved food so much, but she never seemed to find the willpower to push the plate away or really control her serving sizes.
When I was in my mid-20s, she developed an ulcer on her big toe, and because of the diabetes, it wouldn’t heal. This ultimately led to the first amputation.
As the diabetes took its toll, her eyesight began to go, and she was forced to take dialysis several times a week.
She had to read her Bible with a magnifying glass, and she just didn’t have the enthusiasm and zest for life she once had.
As the years passed, the amputations continued. She lost more toes, then a foot and then the lower part of one leg.
It broke my heart to see my aunt confined to a wheelchair and later to a bed, when all I could see in my mind was us taking those long walks as a child.
It also was difficult to watch them take her bit by bit. You couldn’t tell as much when she lost the toes, but when they took the lower part of her leg just below the knee, it was devastating.
Things didn’t get any better for Aunt Flora Mae. Before she died almost six years ago, she only had part of one leg left. The other one had been taken all the way up to her hip, and they were beginning to amputate some of her fingers.
With her tragic story of diabetes branded in my memory, you would think I would do a better job of keeping my own diet under control.
Like many Americans, I think it won’t happen to me. But it will if I don’t do something soon. Type 2 diabetes usually appears after age 40, and I am there.
Dr. Flautt said he always gives his patients one month to make diabetes go away. He gives them an opportunity to lose weight and control their diet before medication is administered. He said some succeed and some don’t.
Medication can help, but the disease will continue to eat away at our body if we fail to properly care for it. Diabetes can lead to heart disease, kidney disease, adult onset blindness, amputations and stroke.
As Leflore Countians, we need to make more of an effort to control diabetes and stop letting it control us. Being first in the number of cases of diabetes is a distinction we don’t want to have.
Medication and doctor visits are costly, and there will be plenty of both if we develop Type 2 diabetes. That’s not including hospital stays down the road or repeated trips to the dialysis center.
We all should have yearly checks of our blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol and keep our Body Mass Index at 25 or less, which greatly reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes, some cancers, stroke and heart disease.
What’s scary is the fact that there are 115,000 in Mississippi who are unaware they have the disease.
Why?
Unfortunately, many people have no warning signs.
But for those of you who are experiencing extreme thirst, frequent urination, numb or tingling feet, blurry vision, fatigue, weight loss or have a sore that won’t heal, you should be checked for diabetes.
Don’t wait for these tell-tell signs if you have a family history of diabetes. You can delay the onset of the disease and, in many cases, prevent it altogether.
Have a regular checkup and share your family history with your doctor. It could save your life.
