It's easier than you think!

While there is no cure for diabetes, it is possible to prevent most problems caused by the disease. Because your body cannot control your blood sugar level, it's higher than normal level leads to heart and kidney disease, stroke, blindness, and even death. Controlling your blood sugar is the key to preventing the serious complications that can arise from the disease. The Alta Bates Summit Diabetes Program team can help you control your blood sugar.

Our Diabetes Program offers you the latest information and technology to help you control your disease. Our diabetes specialists are nurses and dietitians work closely with you to develop a program that fits your individual needs.

Controlling diabetes requires a careful blend of diet, exercise, and if necessary, insulin or medicine. Diets are important to help you maintain a healthy weight and a healthy blood glucose level. By selecting appropriate foods and timing meals to avoid experiencing low blood sugar, many diabetics can often reduce or even eliminate the amount of insulin they take.

Exercise is equally important in controlling diabetes. Used to increase circulation and burn excess glucose, regular exercise helps maintain overall health and improve the diabetic's circulation. It also helps keep excess weight down and helps control blood sugar because muscles use more glucose during vigorous exercise. In addition, exercise makes the cells more sensitive to insulin, enabling them to use it more efficiently. Our physicians can best design an exercise program appropriate for you.

Further treatment strategies include proper foot care, good skin maintenance, and careful attention to teeth and gums. Any sores, infections, or irritations in these areas should be reported to your physician immediately.

Diabetes can affect a patient's emotional condition and stress level, just as emotions and stress can play a large role in diabetes management. Patients may respond to a diagnosis treatment or complication with a variety of feelings, including depression, anger, frustration, guilt, or fear. If these emotions are suppressed or ignored, they can often interfere with efficient diabetes control. For example, depression can cause overeating or a lack of exercise, while stress alone can cause the blood sugar level to rise. Diabetics are faced with two emotional challenges: first, a substantial lifestyle change, including drug administration, a restricted diet, and physical exams, and second, accepting the presence of a potentially life-threatening disease. Seeking support from family, friends, or clergy, as well as properly managing diet, medications, and exercise, can all help ease the strong emotions associated with diabetes.

Community Programs and Support Groups
To help you learn more about controlling diabetes, we invite you attend one of our many support groups, lecture series, and health education classes. We encourage you to bring family member or friend with you, providing you with additional, knowledgeable support. Our outpatient services offer diabetes management classes, a food a nutrition class, a starting insulin class, and a variety of support groups and personal sessions.

We also offer "Diabetes: It's a Family Affair," a free lecture that presents general facts about diabetes, guidelines for nutrition and exercise for diabetics and how family members can support you cope with this health challenge. Also offered is a Diabetes Support Group held in Berkeley on the third Tuesday of the month from 7:30 to 9:30 pm.

Call the Diabetes Center at (510) 204-1081 to get started on your road to health.