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As the executive director of the Utah Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and friend of many who live each day with type 1 diabetes, I'd like to discuss the devastating effects of this disease and urge the renewal of the Special Diabetes Program to fund diabetes research.
Diabetes in both forms - type 1 and type 2 - is the costliest chronic disease today and affects nearly 21 million Americans, with that number steadily increasing each year. The statistics on diabetes are not only staggering, they are frightening.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation was founded in 1970 by the parents of children with type 1 (often called juvenile) diabetes, an autoimmune disease that strikes children suddenly, making them insulin-dependent for life, and carries the constant threat of devastating complications.
Type 1 diabetes, the most severe form of the disease, needs constant attention, and managing it is a 24/7 job that requires multiple insulin injections daily, a rigorous meal plan and tight control of blood sugar levels. Being a parent of a child with type 1 diabetes usually means many sleepless nights, constantly checking the child's blood-sugar level while he or she is asleep, for fear of seizures and comas that can happen overnight. For those with type 1 diabetes, life is a never-ending routine of finger sticks and insulin injections just to stay alive.
obesity among young adults today only exacerbates the rising cases of type 2 diabetes in the U.S - the form of diabetes which is in direct correlation with one's diet. In people with type 2 diabetes, a person's body still produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively.
In both forms of diabetes, merely taking insulin does not cure the disease. And the damage of complications caused by diabetes is not limited to either form. As the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness and non-traumatic amputations and a leading cause of nerve damage, stroke and heart attacks, it is no wonder that diabetes accounts for $132 billion in health-care costs a year.
Nov. 14 marked the first World Diabetes Day observed by the United Nations, an extremely important milestone in recognizing diabetes as a worldwide epidemic and elevating it to the same threat level as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
This recognition provides the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of diabetes and provide a platform in which to further encourage Congress to support type 1 diabetes research by renewing the Special Diabetes Program, a landmark program providing critically needed federal funding for type 1 diabetes research.
Unless the program is renewed this year, 35 percent of federal support for type 1 diabetes research is at risk - possibly delaying or even halting the current progress of promising research toward a cure.
My hope is to inform everyone about the devastating effects of diabetes and the enormous toll it places on the economy. The combined efforts of citizens and both state and federal government can help halt this terrible disease.
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Healthy Living 
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