OGDENSBURG -- November is National Diabetes Month and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center (CHMC) is joining communities across the country to bring attention to diabetes. Within the month lies National Diabetes Education Week, November 1-8, set aside to celebrate the work of certified diabetes education specialists, and World Diabetes Day. There is also November 14, a date that brings awareness of diabetes to more than 160 countries, and pays tribute to Sir Frederick Banting, and Charles Best, who discovered insulin in 1922, CHMC said.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), approximately 1,634,000 people in New York, or 10.5% of the adult population have diagnosed diabetes. An additional 456,000 people in New York have diabetes but don’t know it, greatly increasing their health risk. There are 5,228,000 people in New York, 33.5% of the adult population, who have prediabetes with blood glucose levels that are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Every year an estimated 129,000 people in New York are diagnosed with diabetes.

Obesity is closely related to diabetes. On a regional level, the 2016 NYS Extended Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, found that 34.1% of St. Lawrence County adults were obese, several percentage points higher than the statewide average (25.5%). Another third of adult residents (34.8%) were overweight increasing the rate to 68.9%, also above the statewide rate of obese and overweight adults (60.5%). The percentage of overweight and obese elementary school students (34.8%) also exceeds the statewide average (32.2%).

Diabetes is expensive to both the patient and the healthcare system. According to the ADA, people with diabetes have medical expenses approximately 2.3 times higher than those who do not have diabetes. The total direct medical expenses for diagnosed diabetes in New York were estimated at $15.1 billion in 2017. In addition, another $6.1 billion was spend on indirect costs from lost productivity due to diabetes.

COVID-19 adds a new level of concern in regards to people with chronic conditions like diabetes. The CDC reports that people of any age with certain underlying medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes, are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19. It’s important to remember that people with either type of diabetes can vary in their age, complications they’ve developed and how well they have been able to manage their diabetes. People who already have diabetes-related health problems are likely to have worse outcomes if they contract COVID-19 than people with diabetes who are otherwise healthy.
According to the Defeat Diabetes Foundation, the good news is that it is estimated that at least 90% of type 2 diabetes cases are preventable. New York State is committed to improving lives, preventing diabetes and finding a cure. In fact, in 2019, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health invested $136,754,796 in diabetes-related research projects in New York. The Division of Diabetes Translation at the CDC provided $4,294,633 in diabetes prevention educational grants in New York in 2018.
Funding opportunities like these, enable organizations like CHMC to offer free diabetes-related programs to our community. CHMC is proud to celebrate our own American Diabetes Association recognized Diabetes Education Program as well as our own Certified Diabetes Educator, Shannon VanHouse, RN. In addition to our diabetes education and diabetes self-management education programs, we offer a free CDC diabetes prevention program, a free health and wellness support group, and a free diabetes support group. CHMC is also the gracious recipient of a Lions Club International grant that funded our CHMC Lions Diabetes Education Conference Room, a suite dedicated to diabetes education and management.
For more information about diabetes services at CHMC, call CHMC at 315-713-5116 or visit us on the web at www.claxtonhepburn.org