Health and fitness briefs, Nov. 27

Each week seems to bring more bad news about Oklahoma's diabetes rate. A report last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed increased diagnoses of diabetes nationwide. Oklahoma's rate leapt to 10 percent, its biggest jump in 15 years.

The Harold Hamm Diabetes Center cited the data while urging Oklahomans to do whatever they can today to prevent a diabetes diagnosis in the future.

“Oklahoma is at the center of the growing diabetes epidemic,” Dr. Timothy Lyons, director of Research and Scientific Programs at the diabetes center, said in a news release. “Diabetes costs our state more than $3 billion in health care expenditures, and the economic toll is mounting.”

As many as 552 million people may have diabetes by the year 2030, sending costs climbing to $595 billion, according to International Diabetes Federation predictions mentioned in the release.

“Just as alarming is the rapid growth of Type 2 diabetes in children,” Dr. Kenneth Copeland, director of Children's Programs at the diabetes center, said in the release. “Because this is an aggressive disease in children, we need to be equally aggressive in both treatment and prevention. ... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes later in life.”

About 304,500 adult Oklahomans have been diagnosed with diabetes, the release states. An estimated 124,000 more have it but don't know it. Oklahoma is in the top four in the nation for diabetes rate; the disease is the fourth leading cause of death here.

A healthy lifestyle can help prevent the disease. Maintain a healthy weight, eat nutritious foods and exercise regularly.

“The number of people with diabetes in Oklahoma continues to rise,” Lyons said in the release. “We are moving in the wrong direction, and the consequences are dire. If we do not turn this around, we will see more people losing limbs, vision, kidney function and even their lives to this disease.”

BRAIN

Brain health discussion in Edmond

Dr. Germaine Odenheimer, a geriatric neurologist, will discuss art and the aging brain at 6 p.m. Thursday at Touchmark at Coffee Creek, 2801 Shortgrass Rd., Edmond. The free talk will consider questions such as: How does art help us heal? How does art reflect a damaged brain? Odenheimer is a board-certified neurologist at the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

For more information, call Maggie Darcey at Touchmark, 340-1975.

REVIEW

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