November is National Diabetes Awareness month and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the last 20 years, the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes has more than tripled.

Carolyn Gronniger is a Registered Nurse and Certified Diabetes Educator at Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph. Gronniger said one of the misconceptions about diabetes is that eating sugar causes diabetes.

“There’s a misconception… people feel that persons with diabetes are not supposed to eat any carbohydrates or are not supposed to eat sugar, when in fact, carbohydrates are a main nutrient that is important in our diet,” Gronniger said. “The thing of it is, with a person with diabetes is their body is having trouble utilizing, processing, metabolizing that sugar or glucose for energy, so therein lies the problem. Their body still needs some carbohydrates, their body still needs some sugar but it’s more in moderation and it’s not necessarily evil.”

According to Gronniger, early on, diabetes doesn’t necessarily cause noticeable symptoms.

“Everybody needs to have a primary care provider. I don’t care how old you are, how young you are, everybody needs to have a primary care provider and see them on a regular basis,” Gronniger said. “Get some of those routine maintenance checks done because that’s where it’s picked up early on, subtle increases in blood sugar levels that may not cause you any symptoms at all.”

Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator with Mosaic Susan Alderson said anyone 45 and older, especially if they have a family history of diabetes, should get tested. Alderson adds some preventative measures people can take include keeping a healthy weight and exercise.

Some services offered at Mosaic Life Care include individual and group diabetes classes and a diabetes self-management education program.

“Within the structure of the classes some of the things that we discuss and talk about are monitoring your blood sugar, what do those numbers mean, figuring out a meal plan for the patient, encouraging activity, going over medications and also getting support,” said Karen Wedlock, RN, CDE.

For more information on diabetes and classes, contact Diabetes Care at Mosaic Life Care by calling (816) 271-6700 or click here.