Most people think that preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition that occurs during pregnancy, goes away after the baby is born. That’s why Noelle Roth, who was diagnosed with the disease just two days before having her daughter, was surprised to learn that her short stint with the condition had long-term ramifications. It puts her…
If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes or prediabetes, you may have heard the term “A1C.” This is a blood test that measures your average blood sugar level over the last 90 to 120 days, and it’s a powerful tool for staying healthy. “A1C is the yardstick of blood sugar,” says UNC Health diabetes educator Camille…
If you have diabetes, you might know that foot problems, such as sores that won’t heal, are common in people with the disease. Fortunately, you can lower your chances of having diabetes-related foot problems by managing your blood sugar and taking care of your feet every day. We talked to UNC Health podiatrist Howard E.…
About 200,000 children in the United States have type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that occurs when a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, the hormone that controls blood-sugar levels. With early diagnosis and treatment of type 1 diabetes, children can stay out of the hospital, but a late diagnosis can lead to a life-threatening illness…
There are more than 34 million people in the U.S. who have diabetes—that’s 10 percent of the population. So if you don’t have the disease, you certainly know someone who does. Managing diabetes can be difficult, but there are ways you can help or offer support to someone who needs it. UNC Health endocrinologist M.…
If you have diabetes, you’re used to putting in extra effort to manage your health. Now, there’s a new wrinkle: It appears people with diabetes are more prone to complications from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). “If you have diabetes, you really don’t want to get COVID,” says UNC Health endocrinologist John B. Buse, MD, PhD.…
Diabetic retinopathy is the most common cause of vision loss in people who have diabetes and the leading cause of blindness in working-age people in the United States. It can be prevented, but it is difficult to catch because it usually has no symptoms in the early stages of the disease. Once damage is done,…
Do you have undiagnosed diabetes? 1.4 million Americans are newly diagnosed each year. In recognition of National Diabetes Awareness Month, we want you to monitor for these 10 subtle signs of diabetes. [Read more...]
Age-specific guidelines for diabetes care. If your child has been diagnosed with diabetes, you may have dozens of questions and concerns. While a diagnosis can feel scary and overwhelming, it does get better. “Take it one day at a time, and after a few months, it’s going to feel a lot easier and manageable,” says…
Children's Health, Diabetes, Endocrinology, Health, Pediatric Medicine
Learn why more children are being diagnosed with this condition and how to prevent it. Once upon a time, type 2 diabetes was called adult-onset diabetes because it almost exclusively affected adults. Back then, virtually all children with diabetes had the type 1 form of the disease, but that’s no longer the case. In recent…
Fortunately, medicine has come a long way since the Middle Ages, but one early practice might be coming back: bloodletting. Bloodletting, a process in which units of blood are drawn to cure or prevent disease, has a history spanning 3,000 years. The practice was used to cure ailments including the plague, smallpox, epilepsy and gout,…
More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, but there are many misconceptions about what it does to the body, who can get it and how it’s treated. We talked to UNC Health experts to create this explainer. The Disease “Diabetes in all its forms is essentially excess sugar in the bloodstream,” says Deepa Kirk, MD,…
