Diabetes prevention seminar offers advice, screenings

PHILADELPHIA —Eli Lilly, the Health Ministry Program Coalition and the Keystone Mercy Health Plan recently sponsored the Diabetes and Weight Management seminar, which offered black women a chance to receive information from a panel of doctors and health and fitness experts about the signs and symptoms of diabetes and how nutrition and weight management can help control and prevent the disease.

The event was part of the 8th Annual Health Ministry Program for Women held at the Bright Hope Baptist Church. About 75 women came to the seminar, and as well as receiving advice and telling their own stories of living with diabetes, they also received health screenings, which included an eye exam that tested patients for glaucoma, a disease typically associated with diabetes. According to the National Diabetes Education Program, approximately 3.2 million blacks, 20 years old and older, have diabetes, one-third of whom are undiagnosed.