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Free Glucose Testing Helps Local Pre-Diabetics
11/13/08 - 06:37 PM
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Over 23 million Americans have diabetes, including almost 6 million who don’t know it. One Panama City organization is helping citizens find out their diabetes diagnosis for free.

Almost 2 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year, and the Bay Medical Diabetes Center is helping catch diabetes early, one free screening at a time.

Once a month, the center has free glucose screenings. 57 million Americans have pre-diabetes, and many of the people who come to the screenings are among that group. Several of the patients told me that it’s helpful financially to have the free screenings available, because buying your own testing equipment is expensive.

Jo Colville of the Diagnostics Center says that the free screening brings in people who might not normally get tested, and that it helps them catch the disease before it gets out of control.

“We were discovering that a lot of people had abnormal blood sugars,” says Colville, “And at that point we would go ahead and council them as to how to maybe improve them or advise them to go see their physician. For follow up and that way we knew they were being seen for a potentially dangerous condition.”

According to the American Diabetes Association, it’s especially important to get tested if:
Diabetes runs in your family
You have high blood pressure (over 140/90)
You have low HDL (good) cholesterol (40 or lower)
You have high triglycerides (150 or higher)
You are African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Asian American or Pacific Islander
You had a baby weighing more than 9 pounds or had gestational diabetes

The next free screening will be December 11th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.