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Health campaign promotes diabetes awareness, testing

Updated: 2009-11-03 09:00:00 CST Category: Diabetes

by Brendan Missett

While diabetes accounts for more deaths in the U.S. than breast cancer and AIDS combined, few Americans know of the prevalence and risks associated with the disease, according to new research.

A survey administered by the American Diabetes Association revealed that only 42 percent of those surveyed knew that diabetes could be deadly; more than two-thirds wrongly believed too much sugar causes the condition and more than half incorrectly said that type 2 diabetes was inevitable for the overweight or obese, HealthDay News reports.

Sue McLaughlin, president of Health Care and Education for the association has begun the Stop Diabetes campaign to involve more people in fighting the condition through education and diagnostic testing.

The health expert told the news source that sugar and diet are not at all factors in type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease. Additionally, genetic factors, contribute to the onset of type 2 diabetes - not just obesity.

"There's a real lack of awareness of the seriousness of the disease," McLaughlin concluded. One diabetes patient, Malika Bey of Pittsburgh, said that even the absence of diet sodas at parties can make the disease more difficult and my feel like a lack of support.

Doctors at the American Diabetes Association recommend a fasting plasma glucose test or a casual plasma glucose test for diabetes screening.

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