Area Agency on Aging diet-technician Kelly Robinette defines some of the symptoms of Diabetes, the testing for Diabetes, and is an instructor for ongoing sessions of the Personal Action Toward Health class with a focus on Diabetes management.
Area Agency on Aging diet-technician Kelly Robinette defines some of the symptoms of Diabetes, the testing for Diabetes, and is an instructor for ongoing sessions of the Personal Action Toward Health class with a focus on Diabetes management.
Good morning. This is Kitty Glomski along with
Brooke:my cohost Brooke Mainville
Kitty Glomski:from Region 9 Area Agency and Aging and another episode of Let's Talk About Aging.
Brooke Mainville:Today, we have a returning guest, Kelly Robinette. Welcome back Kelly to Let's Talk About Aging. Thanks for having me back. A couple months ago Kelly came and talked to us about cooking for Two and Tips for Meal preparation but today we're going to talk about the important topic of diabetes. Kelly, I know there's three different types of diabetes: type one, type two, and gestational. Which one is more prevalent?
Kelly Robinette:First, let me tell you what diabetes is. Diabetes is a condition that causes blood sugar, which is your blood glucose levels to rise higher than normal. Hypoglycemia is the term that doctors use for high blood sugar. So basically when we eat, our body breaks down food into glucose and sends it into our blood. Insulin, a hormone which is made by our pancreas helps smooth the glucose from our blood into our blood cells so that we use this for energy. Your pancreas is an organ in your stomach. So like Brooke said, there are a few different types of diabetes. Pre-diabetes is a condition that comes before diabetes. It means your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but are not high enough to be called diabetes.
Brooke Mainville:How does someone get tested for pre-diabetes?
Kelly Robinette:Your doctor will do an A1C test, which is a picture of your blood sugar over the last three months. So that will kind of determine, and you can have pre-diabetes and not know that you have it because one in three adults, which is about 86 million people, have pre-diabetes and they don't even know, and they don't even know. Type one diabetes is the condition in which your immune system destroys your insulin making cells in your pancreas, and those are the beta cells. Type one diabetics must take insulin every day, and Type one diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young people, so it's a lifetime thing. It's often called juvenile diabetes. One in 20 people have type one diabetes. The most popular one is type two diabetes, and it's caused when your body has trouble using the insulin it makes, and this is called insulin resistance, and it causes your blood sugar to rise higher than normal. At first, your pancreas makes more insulin to make up for this. But over time, it won't be able to keep your blood sugar levels in the normal range. So when our blood sugar levels stay too high for too long of a period of time, it increases your risk of other medical conditions such as heart attacks, kidney disease, blindness, nerve pain, and type two diabetes often runs in families.
Brooke Mainville:I know there's a third one, the gestational, but I want to know how does someone manage their diabetes?
Kelly Robinette:You can manage it and control it by your diet, you can control it by exercise, and sometimes it's just a matter of losing 10 pounds and that will bring your blood sugar levels down. Sometimes your doctor will put you on medication and you won't necessarily have to possibly stay on medication for your whole life. I'm a type two diabetic and I was on medication and then I had the weight loss surgery and I was able to get off my diabetic medication. But just in recently, my sugars have been running high, so my doctor has put me back on it. So even if my sugars would've stayed normal, once you're diabetic, you're diabetic for life. You just have to manage your blood sugar levels. Some of the signs of diabetes that your doctor will look for: is obesity, especially around the middle. This is a waist that is more than 40 inches around for men and 35 inches around for women. You have high blood pressure, signs of eye disease when you get an eye examination. Sometimes there's decreased feeling and reflexes in your legs, propulses in your feet. There's blisters and abnormal heart rhythm, but your doctor will also do lab tests. There's a fasting blood sugar, and this test your blood sugar before you have had anything to eat or drink. there's the hemoglobin A1C that measures your blood sugar level over the past two or three months. There's a lipid profile and there's other tests that the doctor will look at. Usually you have to do like a finger stick to test your blood sugar. And that tells you what your blood sugar is at the moment. And that A1C tells you how your blood sugars have been running over the last couple three months.
Brooke Mainville:So what level would a person want their A1C at typically?
Kelly Robinette:Your A1C, your doctor would like it below seven.
Brooke Mainville:So like you said, Kelly, someone can manage their diabetes by exercise, watching what they're eating, testing their blood regularly, and is there anything else that they could do with that then?
Kelly Robinette:Basically a lot of is like watching your carb consumption, because how many times do we ever sit down and watch TV and pretty soon we know we've got a whole bag of potato chips gone. That whole bag of potato chips could be more carbs than what we could eat in the whole day. And we need to eat a lot of foods with fiber in'em, like a green vegetables and fruits. We need to consume lean meats and other healthy sources of protein. Lean meats would be, like chicken and fish, that type of thing.
Brooke Mainville:I know of this thing called MyPlate. What is the my plate?
Kelly Robinette:My plate is the way that we should all be eating. Usually it's three ounces of protein, half of your plate is fruit and vegetables and the quarter of your plate is starch and grains.
Brooke Mainville:So Kelly, where can they go online to find more information on MyPlate?
Kelly Robinette:You can go to the myplate.gov. That'll give you a nice example of what the MyPlate portion looks like. You know, because like I said, a quarter of your plate is grains, a little more than a quarter is green vegetables and fruit, a quarter is protein. And that's how we typically should should be eating.
Brooke Mainville:I believe they have a MyPlate, for someone with diabetes and they have their non-diabetic person as well. They have other tips on here. For eating healthy life stages, resources. So it's a great place to go and look is
Kelly Robinette:Myplate.gov
Brooke Mainville:Kelly, you and I do a workshop called Diabetes Path and you've taken it numerous times. Now as a leader, what are your thoughts on it? What is the program?
Kelly Robinette:We do a lot of meal planning in our class, the things that cause stress, how important exercise is, better communication, how to communicate with your doctor, how to take charge of your diabetes. So our Diabetes Path class works very well hand-in-hand with instructions your dietician gives you.
Brooke Mainville:There's even a section on there about what to do when you're sick with diabetes, a proper foot care action plan. Every week we do an action plan. That's something that you want to do for yourself because little goals do add up. The Diabetes Path Workshop is a six week workshop, it's a two and a half hour long workshop. We do hold those virtually or in person. So you could be the person with diabetes or you could be a caregiver of someone with diabetes to take this workshop as well.
Kelly Robinette:Correct. We've had a lot of participants in the past classes. Maybe some people have never been to the dietician and once they get in to learn what the carbs are and the meal planning, they will be surprised when they start using the proper portions how much their blood sugars drop.
Brooke Mainville:Some people don't even know what a serving size or a portion is.
Kelly Robinette:Just to give you an example, and we use this in the class, we all go out to Chinese restaurants and when you go to a Chinese restaurant, you get that big, huge bowl of rice, so sometimes we don't pay attention to how much rice we put on our plate, but actually a serving a rice is only a third of a cup.
Brooke Mainville:A third of a cup.
Kelly Robinette:So you're really surprised at how much rice you are actually eating versus how much the portion size actually is.
Brooke Mainville:Even with soda, right? A eight ounces of soda is very small. It's not that much. Or sometimes like the 24 ounces will be what, two and a half servings. Mm-hmm. So you're thinking, oh, I'm only consuming a hundred calories, but maybe you're doing 250 calories.
Kelly Robinette:Or the same thing for breakfast when you drink juice. I mean, it's a four ounce serving of juice. All our glasses aren't sized four ounces, so if you're drinking a huge glass of orange juice, you've got to really wonder sometimes how many portions you're actually drinking. So it's a very, very good class, and we have had numerous people take the class over again. Even though the information will be the same, the dynamics will be a little bit different because you'll have different people in the class.
Brooke Mainville:It is a proven, evidence-based workshop. So it has been proven and studied to work. It's not something that Kelly or I just put together. It's from SMRC(Self-Management Resource Center), and they put this content together and it's actually being done all over the world. So that's a great resource to have here in our community.
Kelly Robinette:It's been translated into many, many different languages all over the world.
Brooke Mainville:So we talked about diabetes. We had a lot to say. Kelly, is there any other facts or information you want to give today?
Kelly Robinette:I found this very interesting that cases of type two diabetes have doubled in America in the past 20 years.
Brooke Mainville:Wow. So cases of type two diabetes has doubled.
Kelly Robinette:More than 37 million people in the United States have diabetes, and one in five of them don't even know that they have it.
Brooke Mainville:Those are some sad statistics just startling. And what can undiagnosed diabetes do to your body?
Kelly Robinette:Over time, it may lead to kidney disease. It could lead to heart disease. It can just lead to a lot of things. If you are diabetic and you cut your foot and it doesn't heal and you leave it untreated, there's just many, many things that it can lead to. What are the warning signs of pre-diabetes? What are the signs that maybe some people should be looking for? Sometimes there's no symptoms in the early stages, but maybe there's increased thirst, increased urination. You're feeling tired, you might have blurry vision, you have more frequent infections, or you have infections and cuts that heal very, very slowly, or not at all.
Brooke Mainville:So those are just some warning signs to look out if you think you might be pre-diabetic or diabetic. Please talk to your healthcare provider. If you are diabetic and you're looking to make some changes in your life, we do have that Diabetes Path workshop. You can register by contacting me at 989-358-4616. Again, that was 989-358-4616 or go into our website at nemcsa.org, nemcsa.org and we'll have evidence-based programs, diabetes Path coming up for this year. Kelly, thank you for being here.
Kelly Robinette:If you have diabetes or know somebody with diabetes or care for somebody with diabetes, please sign up for a class. Brooke and I love to teach that class.
Brooke Mainville:Our participants really do see benefits from taking that workshop and we like to see them make healthy changes and it puts a great big smile on our face because they're smiling. Well thank you and we'll be with you again later next month.
Kitty Glomski:This is Kitty Glomski and Brooke Mainville, with the Calendar of Events. On February 8th, that's the second Wednesday of February, the MMAP program has a New to Medicare presentation starting at 10 o'clock on Zoom. This is a virtual presentation. This is information for anyone that is new to Medicare, is starting Medicare due to disability or has questions and wants to know how Medicare works. Then afterwards you get to meet one on one with a counselor and talk about your personal situation. To register, you can call 1-800-803-7174 or contact your local Senior Center, your Commission or Council on Aging, and they can make the appointment for you. On February 10th from one to two o'clock is the first of the Virtual Caregiver webinar series called Navigating Difficult Conversations. A panel of persons that are living with dementia will explore strategies to approach difficult conversations. For more information or to register, contact Brooke at 989-358-4616. On February 21st, begins the chronic pain PATH class. PATH is personal action toward health. The chronic pain PATH class, is held on Tuesdays, from February 21st through March 28th from nine to 11 o'clock, and this is a virtual presentation.
Brooke Mainville:You could register for both of these items through contacting me. That's 989-358-4616. Again, that was 989-358-4616 or you can email me at mainvilleb@nemcsa.org. My information is on our website in our Facebook page So we would love to have you, and those are my two events.
Kitty Glomski:So this is Kitty Glomski and Brooke Mainville asking you to join us again next time on Let's Talk About Aging.
Carla:Let's Talk About Aging is a production of the Region 9 Area Agency on Aging, 2569 US 23 South, Alpena, Michigan 4 9 7 0 7. This Podcast was supported, in part, by grant number 90MPPG0039 from the US Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. Podcast music provided by Groove Music, selection titled"Modern Logo," created by Vadym Kuznietsov and can be found at https://elements.envato.com/modern-logo-ZVHFBJ6