Diabetes Basics Part 9: Diabetes Care is Preventive Care

I began this 9-part blog series on diabetes by describing how a healthy individual maintains normal glucose levels. I then focused on the basics of diabetes. To review, diabetes is a chronic disease that develops when the body can no longer maintain normal glucose levels. The high glucose levels can make you feel unwell. Over time, glucose plus a wide variety of known, suspected, and unknown factors increase the chance of developing a wide variety of serious health problems throughout life. These can affect almost any organ in the body. They also include several emotional and mental consequences such as shame, guilt, depression, and anxiety in addition to the financial and logistical burdens of dealing with a chronic disease throughout a lifetime. The fact that diabetes is so common and that both type 1 and type 2 diabetes rates are rising means that more than 1 in 10 Canadians are wrestling with these concerns. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that there is so much that people with diabetes can do to reduce and even eliminate the burdens of diabetes by working collaboratively with their healthcare team. Even better –  this is only going to get easier and more effective with time due to ongoing medical research and innovation. Canadian medical researchers are in fact leading much of this work and Canada’s contribution to improving the lives of people with diabetes is recognized around the world.

The bottom line and the most important message is that a diagnosis of diabetes is serious, stressful and upsetting.  But it is not the end of the world. It is the beginning of an opportunity to work with the healthcare team to identify the best way to ensure that the next 20, 30, 40, or 80 years of life remain productive and healthy.

Diabetes care is preventive care. The ultimate form of diabetes care is diabetes cure or elimination, and at least complete remission. We are not totally there yet. But we are working hard to get there through ongoing clinical trials and related research being conducted all around the world.

About the author

Hertzel Gerstein

Hertzel is an endocrinologist and professor at McMaster University who is in high demand as a speaker, advocate, and educator on diabetes-related topics. His research focuses on using large, international randomized trials to identify and test new ways of preventing type 2 diabetes, reducing serious health outcomes like strokes and death, and achieving type 2 diabetes remissions.