November is National Diabetes Month. And diabetes definitely needs more awareness. There are approximately 114 million people in the U.S. affected by diabetes. 30 million have the disease and 84 million more people have prediabetes meaning their blood sugar is elevated but not yet quite to the point that they are diagnosed with diabetes.
Even though they don’t have diabetes yet, people with prediabetes are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. So they need to find out about their elevated blood sugar soon as they can. By that I mean ask your doctor or healthcare provider to test for Hemoglobin A1c or a fasting blood sugar. Women in perimenopause and menopause are in general at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, many of the symptoms of diabetes are also symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, frequent urination, foggy memory, irritability and mood swings.
Type 2 diabetes can be prevented if you change your lifestyle. How? Lose weight, eat healthy, and exercise more. Diabetes not only puts people at risk for heart disease, it’s also a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, amputation of limbs and other very serious conditions. And like other serious medical problems such as osteoporosis or hardening of the arteries, it happens steadily and silently unless you take the steps needed to stop and reverse the process.
I wrote this song and made this video to remind you of things you can do to lower the risk of diabetes. Also, in my book, The Estrogen Fix, I explain how women in menopause can lower their risk of diabetes if they take estrogen.
Enjoy the video and please share with your friends and relatives.
