What you need to know about diabetes risk and prevention

Diabetes is one of the fastest growing chronic diseases in the world. Nationwide, more than 40 million people are living with diabetes. Nearly one in two Americans has diabetes or pre-diabetes. So that means someone you know or love is probably impacted. Good morning to Dr. Marlon Pragnell, Vice President of Research at the American Diabetes Association. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. It's great to be with you. So the American Diabetes Association working for a cure. But you say the fight really starts with knowing your risk first. Absolutely. It's so important to know your risk for diabetes and to really be aware of the symptoms. So why is early detection so important? What are some of the steps that people can take to really understand that risk and reduce it? Yeah, well, for type 2 diabetes, what you can do is the American Diabetes Association has a free 60-second type 2 diabetes risk test. So you can discover your risk and also encourage people you know who might be at risk as well to take the test. If you find that you have pre-diabetes, you can take steps to prevent or delay type 2. Now for type 1, it's important to learn the symptoms as well and risk factors of type 1. If type 1 runs in your family, you know, you're actually potentially at increased risk as well. So really important to understand if you're at risk, talk to your doctor about getting screened. to test for auto antibodies and also to other other approaches early detection is essential absolutely essential to start treatment to prevent or delay diabetes related complications you know things like heart disease kidney eye nerve damage so absolutely important what are some of the signs and specific symptoms of diabetes that people should look for yeah look out for like you're anything often you know feeling very thirsty or feeling very hungry you know they're eating extreme fatigue you know if you have blurry vision if it cuts to bruises that are slow to heal or weight loss especially type 1 diabetes even though eating more and also tingling or pain or numbness in their hands and feet but you know even with type 2 diabetes for example some symptoms are so mild that people don't even notice them so it's important to really understand your risk. How is the American Diabetes Association really working to change the future for people who are already living with this disease yeah our mission at the ADA is to prevent and cure diabetes and improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes and really thanks to the incredible dedication of researchers doctors advocates you know um and diabetes community supporters we're making huge strides in towards a future free from diabetes and research is such an important part of that um today our work also includes addressing obesity which is a leading risk factor for for developing prediabetes in type two. So we've established the Obesity Association, which is a division of the ADA to raise awareness, provide education to combat stigma, and support high-quality obesity care. So we really continue to meet people where they're at and help them on their journey to better health. All right, November is American Diabetes Month. We are almost to November. How can people get involved to help you guys out? Yeah, we absolutely deeply value the participation. every donor, volunteer, advocate, healthcare professional, and partner. You know, this day-to-day work really makes a real difference in the life of people living with diabetes. So what you can do, we encourage people to join us and keep the momentum going. For example, raising awareness about diabetes, sharing your story, you know, advocating for rights of people with diabetes, and also, importantly, participating in our signature Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes and our Toward a Cure events. These are all focused on raising funds for diabetes research. It's so important to support research and advance our efforts to the cure. All right. We have a link to the American Diabetes. Oh, go ahead. Absolutely not. The link. Go to diabetes.org. All our information is there. It's usually informative. Thank you so much. Yeah, and we'll have that link on our website too, fox4news.com. Dr. Marlon Fragnell, thank you so much for talking to us here this morning.