Mississippi has the second highest diabetes mortality rate in the nation. More than 326,000 Mississippians have been diagnosed with the disease, and an additional 75,000 have diabetes but don't even know it.
Irena McClain, associate director of the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, attributes this to the many factors that prevent Mississippians from getting the health care they need.
“It's frightening because a lot of our population live in areas where there's no hospital, doctor or clinic readily available,” McClain said. “So if they do feel or if they do suspect they have diabetes, who are they going to go see? … There's a lot of barriers that keep people from going to the doctor when they really need to.”
There are also 814,000 Mississippians, more than a third of the adult population, who have blood glucose levels higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes.
The CDC has launched a new ad campaign targeting that population, encouraging them to take a one-minute online prediabetes risk test to see if they should get a blood test to confirm a prediabetes diagnosis.
McClain says that making small lifestyle changes, like removing sugary drinks from one’s diet or adding a light exercise routine, can go a long way in preventing diabetes or slowing the onset if prediabetic.
“We don't mean you have to go run the stadium downtown and be like Rocky or something,” McClain said… Take friends, take your dog, go out and walk. Any kind of activity like that, any kind of exercise is certainly better than being sedentary.”
Every year, over 20,000 Mississippians are diagnosed with diabetes.
