Getting Rid of Diabetes

Video Transcript

"You may be wondering if you can get rid of diabetes. Hi, I'm Amy Bull, professor and family nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Unfortunately, you can't get rid of diabetes, but you can prevent developing diabetes. For instance, if you're at risk for diabetes you can exercise on a daily basis and follow a healthy diet. And this can prevent the development of diabetes. If you already have diabetes, you can prevent its complications by following, again, a healthy diet and regular exercise. By losing even five to seven percent of your body weight, you can prevent having to take medications or possibly reducing the amount of medications that you currently take. If you have diabetes, you can manage it with your health care provider by making regular visits. We would like to see you at least three or four times a year so that we can monitor your blood sugar. We also have a special blood sugar test that will monitor your sugar over a ninety day period. This will let us know how you're doing on average rather than on each individual moment. By having this information about your blood work, your provider and you can decide what are other strategies that you can do to manage your diabetes. If you're a smoker, you need to stop smoking. Smoking raises your blood sugar. If you have high blood pressure, you need to control your blood pressure. Blood pressure is especially important in the diabetic population."