November is National Diabetes Month. Carla McFarland, Dietitian at Pella Regional Health Center, hopes to educate people about the dangers of poor eating habits, and encourage a healthy lifestyle. She says that the number of people with diabetes is expected to explode by 2025, in part due to the number of people who are pre-diabetic. Pre-diabetics are those who are close to having diabetes if they don’t make a change in their habits. McFarland says they hope to provide support to those people before they become diabetic for life.

Knoxville Hospital and Clinics Dietitian Courtney Slater tells KNIA/KRLS News that lots of new technologies have changed the way that diabetics live over the past few years. She says blood sugar meters used to be rare when they came out in the late 80s – now everyone has one. Also new are insulin pumps, which is an alternative to multiple injections a day, and continuing glucose monitoring. She says that the lifestyle changes diabetics make are crucial. She says that counting carbohydrates is probably the most important dietary change – carbs can turn into sugar in the blood.