GREENSBORO, N.C. — WFMY News 2 spoke about a vital issue for millions of people – managing glucose levels when you’re living with diabetes. Dr. Eno Newlin with Cone Health Community Health & Wellness Center is talking with us about what we should know and steps to take to help control our blood sugar.
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What are the health risks/complications that could happen when blood sugar levels are unmanaged?
"When we have uncontrolled blood sugars, we can have uh what we call hyperglycemia. And we have complications of diabetes. And this range from the complications that affect the large vessels like a heart attack or stroke. We call those cardiovascular disease. We could have renal failure leading to dialysis. We could have what is known as the microvascular complications and these are complications where the vision is affected. It's called diabetic retinopathy. We could have the nerves being affected, causing neuropathy. And people start to have numbness in their feet and they have difficulty with the sensation. Other complications include ulcers and then people don't feel when they step on a nail and that could develop into a sore in combination with the neuropathy. This could lead to amputations if they have underlying peripheral vascular disease. And that is another complication where there is a collusion or narrowing of the blood vessels that supply the extremities."
Talk about lifestyle changes that can have the biggest impact on keeping glucose levels in check.
"When we talk about exercise, we're talking about 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, like brisk walking. And when we talk about diet, we refer to what the American Diabetes Association looks at the MyPlate method in which if you imagine you have a nine-inch plate and you're dividing that into four quadrants. One of the quadrants should have your carbohydrate. That's your starches. The other should be your protein, your lean protein. And then the other two quads would have your fruits and your vegetables. And then we wanna go easy on things like the fats on the desserts. And these go hand in hand with medication in ensuring that the diabetes is well controlled."
Dr. Newlin answered these questions and more in the above videos.