Participate in Health U: Diabetes to Quit the Wyoming Diabetes Epidemic Club

The American Diabetes Association says that Wyoming is in a diabetes epidemic. Why?

• 8.3% or about 38,000 of Wyoming’s adults are living with diabetes
• there are another 12,000 adults who have diabetes but don’t know it
• and an additional 148,000 Wyomingites, or 33.6%, have prediabetes.

Let’s shake those numbers out.

According to the April 1, 2020 census, there are approximately 403,795 adults in Wyoming. If 38,000 of them have diabetes, 148,000 are prediabetic and another 12,000 don’t know they have diabetes, that’s nearly half (198,000) of Wyoming’s adults who are in this diabetes epidemic. Chances are that every Wyoming adult either is in this 198,000 or knows someone who is a member of the diabetes epidemic club.

More locally, there are 47,026 people in Campbell County and approximately 32,918 are adults. Nearly half them or 16,459 are in the Wyoming Diabetes Epidemic Club.

(Whoa, that is a large portion of Wyomingites, and neighbors!)

Diabetes is an imbalance of sugar or glucose and insulin in the blood. Too much glucose and not regulating it can have serious health affects including blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage in the feet, amputation, heart attack and stroke.

The four types of diabetes are:

• Prediabetes shows that 15-30% of people with prediabetes will develop Type 2 Diabetes within 5 years. Prediabetes can be managed with lifestyle changes such as weight loss and physical activity
• Type 2 Diabetes is when the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin and/or cannot use the insulin effectively
• Type 1 Diabetes is usually diagnosed during childhood when the body cannot produce enough (or any) insulin on its own. There is no known way to prevent Type 1 Diabetes.
• Gestational Diabetes is a type of diabetes that develops only during pregnancy and can be harmful to the mother and baby. Women with Gestational Diabetes are about 50% more likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes later in life.

Campbell County Health has partnered with the Wyoming Department of Health to help adults learn about diabetes self-management and help them move out of the Diabetes Epidemic Club with a program called Healthy U: Diabetes. Self-management starts with surrounding yourself with people in a similar situation and then learning new tools or reinforcing helpful habits that have taken a back seat.

Healthy U: Diabetes is a free, seven-week workshop that provides facilitated education regarding movement, strength, flexibility, endurance, fatigue, symptom management, appropriate medication use, nutrition, decision making, action planning and getting support from others. Register at www.cchwyo.org/healthyu, or call 307.688.6006.

Source: American Diabetes Association: The Burden of Diabetes in Wyoming