Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D, CA-34) and Beth Dennis Zachary, FACHE, President and CEO, White Memorial Medical Center

Diabetes: The Public Health Crisis of This Century 
Please click here to read this op-ed in Spanish 
     
At age 33, Rosalba looked forward to the joy and happiness a second child would bring to her home. During a routine prenatal care visit, Rosalba found out that she had gestational diabetes, putting her hopes of a healthy pregnancy at risk. Her doctor immediately referred her to the East Los Angeles Center for Diabetes at White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights, where she learned that she would need to take special steps to protect her health and the health of her unborn baby.

Fortunately, Rosalba took the counselor’s advice seriously, made the necessary diet and exercise changes and delivered a healthy baby boy with only minor complications. Rosalba represents the majority of the women with gestational diabetes who deliver at White Memorial every year. The rest of the women are not as fortunate. Often, it’s because the women don’t seek the advice they need or, if they do, don’t take the right actions to control the disease.

Gestational diabetes (GDM), which affects only women who are pregnant, is one of the three most common types of diabetes. The other two are Type 1 (also known as juvenile diabetes) and Type 2 (or adult on-set diabetes). Although Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all diabetes cases, GDM is becoming increasingly common, affecting approximately 200,000 of our mothers, sisters and daughters each year.

Diabetes is a condition in which the body does not produce any or enough insulin to break down the sugars and starches in food to make energy. Instead the body collects extra sugar in the blood that can damage vital organs.

GDM, in particular, can have harrowing effects on the mother and child if left untreated or uncontrolled. It can cause an unborn baby to grow extra large, creating health problems such as damage to the baby’s shoulders during delivery, difficulty breathing, jaundice, and abnormal heart growth.

Additionally, children whose mothers have had GDM have a higher propensity for developing obesity and diabetes as they grow. The mother’s risk does not end at delivery either, because women who have had GDM have a 20 to 50 percent chance of developing Type 2 diabetes in the next 5 to 10 years following the pregnancy.

Ethnic minorities, such as the predominantly Latino community served by White Memorial, continue to have a higher incidence of the disease and are often less able to obtain the care they need to manage it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have estimated that by 2050, 50 percent of minority adults will have diabetes. Already an estimated 2.5 million members of the Latino community 20 years and older have diabetes. At White Memorial alone, 60 percent of patients who have multiple health complications have diabetes.

Although more pronounced among ethnic minorities, diabetes can affect anyone. An estimated 24 million Americans have diabetes, 5.7 million of whom don’t even know they have it. Another 57 million Americans have “pre-diabetes,” putting them at high risk for developing the condition and its complications, such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, and leg and foot amputations. Diabetes contributes to about 200,000 deaths every year.

It is time that we make diabetes research, education and prevention efforts a top priority in our communities and our country. The CDC is already funding great programs like the California Diabetes Program, but we need to do more. During the last five years the national costs of diabetes have increased by more than 30 percent, reaching a staggering $174 billion a year. Yet the CDC Division of Diabetes Translation, which plays a critical role in prevention efforts, has continued to be significantly underfunded. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has urged Congress to invest $1 for every American with diabetes in order to provide the resources necessary to combat this devastating public health crisis.

As women and mothers, we urge you and your loved ones to visit your doctor for a diabetes test, call your local hospital to learn about their programs and look up information online on the ADA web site at www.diabetes.org. Diabetes is often linked to physical inactivity and obesity, so taking the right preventative steps today can help you to stay healthy and live longer.

Diabetes stands as the great public health crisis of this century, particularly in Latino and other minority communities. Together, we can fight this disease and improve the lives of all Americans affected by it.

Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard is the first Latina in U.S. history appointed to the House Appropriations Committee. She serves on the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education where she oversees funding for many important health-related programs and agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health and community health centers. In this role, she has been an advocate for CDC health research and preventative health programs.

Beth Dennis Zachary, FACHE, is president and CEO of White Memorial Medical Center, a 353-bed non-profit, teaching hospital in the predominantly Latino community of Boyle Heights. Under her leadership, the hospital is nearing completion of a 10-year, $200 million campus reconstruction project, which was funded in part through a $31 million fundraising campaign. She has served at WMMC for 20 years, working collaboratively with more than 60 local organizations to meet the critical healthcare needs of the community.

-- ### --