Diabetes Management & Nutrition Education in Richmond, Kentucky
Baptist Health Richmond: Diabetes Management & Nutrition Education
The diabetes self management education classes at Baptist Health in Richmond cover topics such as insulin use and overall nutrition. Learn more about diabetes patient education.
Diabetes Management & Nutrition Education in Richmond, Kentucky HealthTalks Transcript
Beth Taylor RD, CDE, Diabetes Management:
There are several types of diabetes. There’s Type 1 diabetes, and that’s where our body doesn’t make enough of its own insulin, and so those people are usually on insulin injections. There’s also Type 2 diabetes. What causes that most often is maybe we’re overweight, we might have a family history of diabetes, our age is a contributing factor. A sedentary lifestyle also feeds into that, and our eating habits. What happens with Type 2 diabetes is the insulin goes to the cell, but it can’t open it up for the blood sugar to go in to be used for energy.
When participants attend our diabetes self-management education class, they are seen by a nurse here at the hospital who is also a diabetes educator. She covers the different types of diabetes, complications related to diabetes, and how to prevent those. She also covers checking your blood sugar and your blood sugar targets. She goes over the different types of medications and insulins, so that you understand how they work in your body.
Also, you will get an individualized meal plan. We will go over the healthy plate method, and you will know exactly how many carbohydrate servings you should have to help control your blood sugar. She also covers physical activity and the importance of that. Just by changing your lifestyle, becoming more active, changing your eating habits, you have a 60% chance of decreasing your chance of developing Type 2 diabetes.
