Diabetes Week to tackle healthy food

Sweet Alert Inc. will celebrate the Diabetes Week on July 23-30 at the Ayala Activity Center with the theme “Agbayay sa Kahimsug, Health Lifestyle 2011.”

The Sweet Alert will demonstrate how changing into a healthy lifestyle could add more years to life.

Dr. Marian Kyamko Denopol, a nutritionist who is also head of the Diabetes Department of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, will touch on the topic “How to prevent diabetes.” She will also discuss about the food chart.

There will be cooking demonstrations featuring healthy food by leading chefs, physical exercises and free sugar testing for adults.

The activities will be held on July 23 at 3 p.m. at the Ayala Activity Center, in cooperation with the Cebu Holdings Inc. Ayala Center Cebu.

The Sweet Alert aims to educate schoolchildren in the different barangays of Cebu City and province about diabetes prevention.

An estimated three out of five Filipinos are at high risk of becoming diabetics. Worse, they may not even know that they already have the disease.

The Department of Health attributes this to the lifestyle choices today where eating out is the easier alternative to home-cooked meals.

The incidence of diabetes in the country is growing at an alarming rate and unfortunately most of these symptoms surface only at a later age when complications set in.

Diabetes is considered the number one endocrine disorder that leads to hypertension, kidney disease and retinopathy,  which can lead to blindness, and neuropathy, which may result to amputation of the lower limbs.