Spreading information and awareness

"Diabetes is an epidemic right now," said Mary Shick, diabetes educator for St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula.

"Diabetes is an epidemic right now," said Mary Shick, diabetes educator for St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula.

Although diabetes is a spreading disease across the nation, certain types of diabetes are preventable and that is exactly the message, organizer of the walk/run and diabetic sufferer, John Haines was trying to get across on Saturday morning at the Sanders County fairgrounds. Over 30 people showed up to partake in the second annual Diabetic Awareness walk and run Saturday morning.

Haines was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was only three years old. Although some types of diabetes, such as the one Haines was diagnosed with are not preventable, they can be controlled and Type 2 diabetes can be prevented.

Diabetes is a chronic disease marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. High levels of glucose can cause several kinds of long and short-term health problems.

"There are so many things they can do to control diabetes and to prevent their sugars from getting too high and causing damage. The impact of exercise and diet is overwhelming in how much it can control blood sugars," said Shick.

Shick said the power of exercise and a low fat, low carbohydrate diet is remarkable. She cited a study done in Europe that showed the potential to slow or stop the progression of Type 2 diabetes with 150 minutes of exercise per week combined with a healthy diet.

These facts, combined with the walk/run, were used as a tool to get people outside and active as part of Saturday's awareness project.

Physician's Assistant at the Clark Fork Valley Hospital Randy Mack said if people have pre-diabetes, studies show that if they exercise and are able to lose weight and get closer to their ideal body weight, they can potentially reduce the onset of Type 2 diabetes by 60 to 70 percent. This reduction can happen without medication with simple lifestyle choices.

"For whatever reason, there's a resistance in the body when you gain weight and aren't active. There's a resistance of getting sugar out of the blood and into the tissue and when we're more active by exercising and we maintain an ideal body weight that resistance goes down and the sugar is able to get out of the blood stream," said Mack.

On Saturday, the fairgrounds pavilion was filled with booths to give people information on diabetes and ways to get active. If people participated in the walk/run they were given a raffle ticket for every time they completed the three-quarter mile loop around the fairgrounds. The more laps they completed the better chance participants had of winning prizes.

The booths were themed with education and health. The Forest Service had a booth promoting trails throughout the county and free ways to get active. McGowans grocery set up a food display of dietary products that help regulate sugar and other healthy foods. In addition to these businesses, the Back Country Horsemen, TOPS, which is a weight loss support group, Curves and a pediatrist out of Missoula were all in attendance.

Diabetics are prone to having foot problems because of lack of circulation in the feet and numbness, which can cause foot problems to go unnoticed and infection to occur. Pediatrist Gregg Neibauer, who runs a clinic every other week in Plains and Thompson Falls, recommends diabetics get a full foot exam at least once a year to avoid complications.

"We are here to educate people so that they know this could be a potential problem and we try to minimize that by evaluating the patient and minimizing bunyuns and making sure they get into appropriate shoes and making sure they know they have a certain level of disease in the foot and need to be more careful," said Neibauer.

Members from the CFVH's clinic were also in attendance checking people's blood sugars.

When a person hasn't eaten for a while, their blood sugar should be between 70-99 mg/dl. The pre-diabetes levels of a person who hasn't eaten is 100-125 mg/dl. Abnormal glucose levels are 126 mg/dl or greater on more than one testing occasion. These numbers vary depending on when a person has last eaten.

Around 60 people were tested throughout the morning on Saturday.

"We all know how important exercise is, but how many of us are getting that exercise we should be getting? How many of us can walk past the soda and the donuts in the grocery store? Knowing what's good for us and actually following through on it and having the motivation to follow through are two completely different things," said Shick on why she thinks diabetes is such an epidemic in America right now.

The good thing about Type 2 diabetes is its preventability with simple lifestyle changes.