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Managing the 'ABCs' of Diabetes

Brief Description:
People with diabetes who aren't meeting recommended goals for blood-sugar, blood-pressure, and cholesterol levels are risking very serious complications.

Transcript:
Schmalfeldt: A number of reports indicate that people with diabetes are not meeting recommended goals for blood-sugar, blood-pressure, and cholesterol levels. Doctor Judith Fradkin is the Director of the Diabetes, Endocrinology, And Metabolic Diseases Division at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; she says people who don't meet the guidelines are risking very serious complications.

Fradkin: There's very strong evidence from a large number of clinical trials that controlling blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol can prevent heart disease — which is the major killer of people with all kinds of diabetes. And controlling blood pressure, controlling lipids, [and] controlling sugar can dramatically reduce that risk — as well as reducing the risk of some of the other complications that involve the kidneys, the feet, [and] the eyes.

Schmalfeldt: Doctor Fradkin says people with diabetes should talk to their health-care providers about the "A-B-C's" of Diabetes.

Fradkin: 'A' is A1C — that stands for a test that measures your average blood glucose over the previous three months. 'B' is for blood pressure. And, 'C' is for cholesterol — and, particularly, LDL cholesterol — the so-called 'bad cholesterol'.

Schmalfeldt: For more information about diabetes, you can call the National Diabetes Education Program, at 1-800-438-5383 — or log on to their website, at www.ndep.nih.gov. For the National Institutes of Health, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt, in Bethesda, Maryland.

This page was last reviewed on October 24, 2005 .

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