FA R M L A B O R I N F O R M AT I O N B U L L E T I N
Voice of the Fields California
April 2014
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Diabetes—What it is, and how it can be prevented
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hen a person is diagnosed by a doctor with diabetes, it means they have too much sugar in their bloodstream. High blood sugar problems start when a body no longer makes enough of a chemical, or hormone, called insulin to help regulate blood sugar levels.
Our bodies change a lot of the food we eat into a type of sugar called glucose. Glucose travels through your body to all of your cells, giving them energy to work properly. Insulin helps the glucose move from your blood into your cells. Without insulin, your cells wouldn’t get the sugar they need to keep you healthy. By helping to move the sugar from your blood to your body’s cells, insulin helps to keep your blood sugar level at a normal level (not too high; not too low). When you don’t have enough insulin to lower high blood sugar levels, you have diabetes. Diabetes is not contagious, which means you can’t catch it from someone, and you can’t give it to someone else. However, diabetes can, and must be treated because high blood sugar levels can cause serious problems. Diabetes is the leading cause of
blindness and kidney failure among adults. It causes mild to severe nerve damage that, coupled with diabetesrelated circulation problems, can often lead to the loss of a leg or foot. Diabetes significantly increases the risk of heart disease, and it’s the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., directly causing almost 70,000 deaths each year and contributing to thousands more. According to the American Diabetes Association, Hispanics are 1.5 times, and Mexican-Americans are 1.7 times, more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic white adults because of a higher genetic disposition to diabetes. Migrant farmworkers are predominately Hispanic, and along with the higher susceptibility, lack of medical care, lack of healthy and fresh food options and the traveling lifestyle farmworkers lead, are at a higher
Volume 24, Number 4 risk of developing diabetes, and are more likely to have difficulty treating the disease. There are a few different types of diabetes that people could become diagnosed with. Some are more common than others.
Type 1 Diabetes With Type-1 diabetes, your body no longer makes insulin, so those who have this type of diabetes must take insulin medication in order to keep their blood sugar at a healthy level. Most people with Type-1 diabetes are children or young adults, but you can get it at any age. Various factors may contribute to Type-1 diabetes, including genetics and exposure to certain viruses. Despite active research, Type1 diabetes has no cure, although it can be managed.
Type 2 Diabetes With Type-2 diabetes, your body makes some insulin, but not enough, or the insulin your body is making is not working right. If you do not have enough insulin to move sugar from your blood into your body’s cells, the amount of sugar in your blood goes up. Type-2 diabetes is more common in adults, but the number of children and young people with Type-2 diabetes is growing. Eating healthy foods in the right Continued on next page