The Summit County Health Department is offering a class to help people on the cusp of a dangerous lifestyle disease.
For the past three years or so Summit County Health department has been offering classes for those with pre-diabetes or risk for pre-diabetes to help them reverse trends and avoid Type 2 diabetes.
Summit County Health Promotion Director Shelly Worley reports that one out of three adults are pre-diabetic and nine out of 10 that are do not know that they have it.
“It’s difficult to diagnose because you really don’t notice any symptoms or have any signs that are easily recognizable. The best thing to do is to have a conversation with your doctor. You can get a blood test. There’s an easy one an A1C test that will give you the numbers that you need. That’s the easiest and the best way is through a check-up with your physician.”
SaRene Brooks is a health educator with the department, she explains who is at risk for pre-diabetes.
“The older you get the more at risk you are for diabetes. If you’re a male you’re more at risk than female. If you’ve had gestational diabetes. If you’re more sedentary or don’t have a lot of physical activity during the day you’re more at risk. If you’re not in a healthy weight range, then you might be at risk as well. This class is facilitated by trained lifestyle coaches. It focuses on making those changes. It focuses on increasing physical activity and what that means. Going for a brisk walk for 150 minutes a week is the type of change you’d be making. Five-percent weight loss has been proven to reduce the risk for diabetes. Obviously, your ultimate goal would be to lower your A1C so that you’re back down in a safe level.”
If pre-diabetes isn’t managed it can turn into Type 2 diabetes which cannot be reversed.
“Once pre-diabetes develops into Type 2 then a lot of times it does require more medication and lifestyle change to manage. That’s why it’s so important to try and prevent getting into that part. Once you have Type 2 diabetes, you kind of always deal with those effects of it. You always deal with that management part of it. If you can get from pre-diabetes and go back and reverse that then you don’t have to always try to manage the disease.”
The class begins Wednesday March 6th and will run weekly from noon until one, although some classes might not take up the full hour. The eight-week course takes place at the Summit County Health Department located at 650 Round Valley Drive near the Park City Hospital. Worley also reports that you don’t necessarily have to be there in person.
“You can attend in person or we will have web-based video that you can come into the class. If you need to be at work during the day and you just want to get on your computer and attend that way, we offer that too.”
You can register for the class online here
