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Diabetes Breakfast Educates Lions on the Growing Epidemic
Sunday, March 27, 2011
| A blustery March wind couldn’t keep 40 Lions from attending Connecticut Lions second annual Diabetes Awareness Breakfast at Central Connecticut State University on March 27. There we heard from Allison Kelly and Tom Lavan from the American Diabetes Association (ADA), Dr. Ulrike Klueh from UCONN, and Bob Bessel, Diabetes Awareness Chair from Lions District 23-B.
We learned about the growing diabetes epidemic, up from 4% of all Americans in 1995 to 9% today. We learned that 79 million Americans are pre-diabetics, and most don’t know it. And we learned that one in three children born since 2000 will contract diabetes in their lifetimes – a staggering statistic given the personal and social costs of this chronic disease.
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ID candidate Carolyn Messier discusses diabetes education with Lion Bob Clarke from Hartford during our 2011 breakfast at CCSU.
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Allison Kelly (ADA) brought the consequences of these statistics home as she described how her husband, a diabetic, went into shock behind the wheel of his car and crashed into a tree, killing him instantly. With 70% of all diabetics not managing their disease properly, we will see more and more of these tragedies.
On a more hopeful note, Dr. Klueh discussed her research on continuous glucose monitoring, an advanced method for managing diabetic sugar levels. Dr. Klueh’s monitoring device is no larger than a grain of rice and can generate accurate glucose readings for approximately one year. This is a terrific improvement over current devices which are much larger and must be replaced every 3 – 7 days.
Tom Lavan (ADA) calculated the cost of diabetes care for a Connecticut company employing 5100 people. Tom’s figures showed that $3.7 million was spent each year caring diabetics and pre-diabetics in this one company alone.
All Lions are asked to use our presence in every Connecticut community to increase awareness of the risks of diabetes. A biggest loser contest with glucose monitoring could really drive home the correlation between weight and diabetes.
The event concluded with a request to all Lions to sign up for American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walks in the fall. Bessel said that next year’s breakfast has already been scheduled for March 25, 2012, and Lions from all three Connecticut districts are urged to attend.
Bob Bessel
Diabetes Awareness
MD23B
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District 23-B, Connecticut, USA
