New videos, website offer important resources for people affected by diabetes

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 Contact:
Joanne Gallivan
301-496-6110
New videos, website offer important resources for people affected by diabetes

NIH and CDC diabetes education program offers resources to support lifestyle change
New videos to help people make lifestyle changes and cope with the demands of diabetes were announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP). The series of three- to five-minute videos, which can be found at www.YourDiabetesInfo.org/HealthSense address topics such as setting goals to improve health, living with diabetes, finding the support you need, as well as segments on diabetes prevention and physical activity.

The video series is the latest addition to NDEP’s offerings in lifestyle change. The videos are being released to coincide with the redesign of NDEP’s online library of behavior change resources, Diabetes HealthSense. Diabetes HealthSense provides users with a searchable database of research, tools, and programs to address the wide array of psychosocial and lifestyle-change challenges associated with diabetes self-management. Resources included in Diabetes HealthSense have been reviewed by a team of leading independent experts on psychosocial issues with specific expertise in the science of behavior change.

“For more than 14 years, the NDEP has been in the forefront of raising awareness about diabetes, but more needs to be done to provide resources and tools to support health care providers and their patients when it comes to achieving and sustaining health goals,” said Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D., director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health, one of the sponsors of NDEP.

Visitors to the Diabetes HealthSense site can view videos featuring expert professionals who are volunteers to NDEP — as well as people living with diabetes or working to prevent type 2 diabetes — about setting goals and making lifestyle changes. Initial videos (with more in the series to follow) include the following topics:

setting goals to improve your health
managing type 2 diabetes
living with type 2 diabetes: finding the support you need
preventing type 2 diabetes
maintaining a healthy weight
practical tips and action steps: physical activity
Additionally, visitors can choose what they’d like help with, such as how to cope with stress and emotions, eat healthy, or be active. They can also utilize tracking tools for calories or physical activity, or online programs to help them manage their weight or stop smoking.

“It’s common to feel overwhelmed, sad, or angry when you are living with a chronic disease such as diabetes,” said NDEP’s executive committee chair and certified diabetes educator Martha M. Funnell, M.S., R.N. “A person may know what to do to improve their health, but figuring out how to do it can be one of the biggest challenges. For example, people know that being physically active can help them lose weight. But do they know how to take the necessary steps to become more physically active and keep it up over time?”

Diabetes HealthSense includes links to tools and programs to help people set goals and find ways to deal with the stress and emotions that can prevent a person from achieving their goals — whether they have diabetes or are at risk for the disease.

NDEP is jointly sponsored by NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NDEP works with more than 200 partners and offers materials and resources to the general public, people diagnosed with diabetes, and health care and business professionals. NDEP resources are available at www.YourDiabetesInfo.org or by calling toll-free 1-888-693-NDEP (1-888-693-6337).

The NIDDK, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports research on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. Spanning the full spectrum of medicine and afflicting people of all ages and ethnic groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, severe, and disabling conditions affecting Americans. For more information about the NIDDK and its programs, see www.niddk.nih.gov.

CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation works to reduce the preventable burden of diabetes through public health leadership, partnership, research, programs, and policies that translate science into practice. For more information, see www.cdc.gov/diabetes.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2011/niddk-21.htm