Did you know that 16 million Americans have diabetes: but one out of three of those persons does not know it?

Diabetes is a serious and silent disease. It is serious because it can lead to major health complications such as blindness, heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and amputations. It is silent in that many people have no symptoms (or at least anything that they recognize as a symptom).

By the time the disease is diagnosed, damage to arteries, eyes, nerves and kidneys may have been going on for seven to ten years. Every minute at least one person is diagnosed with diabetes, and this treatable disease kills more than 193,000 Americans each year. Don't let it happen to you or those you care about.

You are at higher risk if: 1) You are age 45 and older 2) a member of a high-risk ethnic group (e.g., African-American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, Pacific Islander) 3) you are over weight 4) you have high blood pressure (at or above 140/90) 5) you have a family history of diabetes 6) you have a history of diabetes during pregnancy or you are a woman who has had a baby weighing more than nine pounds at birth.

In an effort to assist our community to maintain optimum health through self monitoring and health education, the Fayette County Health Department will partner with the American Diabetes Association during their American Diabetes Alert to provide free blood sugar screenings and information.

Date for this event is Monday, March 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. To locate other sites near you that will be conducting the screenings during the week of March 6, call the American Diabetes Association at 1-888-DIABETES. If you have two or more of the above risk factors, or would just like to know more about diabetes: please come by and see us. If you decide to have a finger stick test done, please be aware that eating just prior to testing affects test results.

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