Leading SA: Fighting diabetes one day at a time

Tuesday, March 28, is Diabetes Alert Day. A one-day “wake-up call” that focuses on the seriousness of diabetes.

SAN ANTONIO – One in six San Antonians has Type 2 Diabetes, and a third of San Antonians are pre-diabetic.

March 28 is Diabetes Alert Day, a one-day “wake-up call” that focuses on the seriousness of diabetes and the importance of understanding your risk.

Dr. Carolina Solis-Herrera, Chief of the Endocrinology Division at UT Health San Antonio, joined Leading SA to discuss the issues across our community.

“Type one diabetes is a disorder where you develop antibodies against your pancreas, which is the organ that produces insulin and lowers your glucose. It’s more common in children, and it’s about 5% of all the diabetes that we see. Type two diabetes is the most common form of diabetes is about 95% of all the forms of diabetes that is more a form of insulin resistance when you generally are sedentary, overweight than you have family history of diabetes,” Dr. Solis-Herrera said.

Diabetes is a big problem around the country, around Texas, and around San Antonio.

“in minorities and Hispanics, African-Americans, of course, in San Antonio, about 60% of our population is Hispanic. So all of us, most of us are at risk. If you have a history of being overweight or obese, and about 70% of Americans are overweight, then about 50% of Americans are obese. So most of us are at risk. If you have a brother, a sister, a father or mother with type two diabetes, if you’re not active, you’re sedentary, you exercise less than a couple of times a week,” Dr. Solis-Herrera said.

Dr. Solis-Herrera shared some specific symptoms you should be on the lookout for.

The problem about diabetes is like high blood pressure and other disorders that you don’t have too many symptoms until your disorder is very uncontrolled. But if you’re very thirsty, fatigued, you’re gaining or losing weight, craving a lot of sugars. And those are mainly things that are going very frequently to the bathroom, urinating allied, that should alarm you. Also, they get very thirsty and those are the main symptoms for uncontrolled diabetes,” Dr. Solis-Herrera said.

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About the Author:

Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.