The Endocrinology and Nutrition Clinical Management Unit of the Huelva Hospital Complex together with the Huelva Diabetes Association, have promoted a healthy march aimed at patients, family and the general population, framed in the acts of celebration around World Diabetes Day.

An ephemeris with which it is intended to raise public awareness of the importance of prevention, early diagnosis and control of a very prevalent pathology that currently affects 14 % of the population.

With this year's motto 'acts today to change tomorrow' it is sought to highlight the influence that our life habits have on the development of this disease and our ability to modify them, to the point that healthy eating and an increase in activityPhysics can decrease in more than 50% the appearance of this disease.

The day has begun in the auditorium of the Juan Ramón Jiménez Hospital with the conference of the Fernando Herrera Diabetic TriathletEndocrinology and Nutrition Clinic, who have also highlighted the influence of both exercise and food in adequate diabetes control in patients who have already acquired the disease, symbolizing it with this healthy march by the city.

Half a hundred people participate in a healthy march./ H24

Fernando Herrera has moved as a fundamental message that "with diabetes you can", describing in the first person how a triathlon with diabetes can be faced, being for him a "perfect binomial to become an expert in controlling this disease."This professional in Sports Sciences, physical trainer and physical education teacher, has transmitted to attendees how they can practice sports with diabetes safely, with adequate training preparation, emphasizing the precautions to be taken and the controls of the levels of the levelsof insulin that must be done to avoid hypoglycemia while practicing sports, trying to solve the doubts of the attendees from their extensive personal experience.

After the conference, diabetes attendees have controlled their glycemia level assessing whether they needed to put insulin or take some food before starting to walk.

The march, in which patients, family and general population have participated, has started from the main door of the Juan Ramón Jiménez hospital to the Andalusia Avenue of the capital, to return again to the hospital, where they have again measured their levelof blood glucose and have been able to know how their organism responded after walking an hour and how to recover the proper levels of blood glucose in each case.

With this activity, the Clinical Management Unit of Endocrinology and Nutrition of the Hospital Complex of Huelva and the Huelva Diabetes Association, wanted to show the benefits of preventive actions to this pathology, given the current prevalence of type 2 diabetes,whose main risk factors are age and excess weight (overweight/obesity).The latter is increasing in developed societies as an epidemic, at the same time that type 2 diabetes does in Andalusia, studies show that both overweight and obesity are very frequent in the adult population, being able to affirm that almost 30% of adults have obesity today.

Combining the incidence data of type 2 diabetes according to the degree of excess weight, it can be estimated that, only in the population under 60, about 30,000 new cases would appear each year.Of these, the vast majority(more than 90%) appear in people with excess weight (overweight or obesity).Hence the importance of modifying the lifestyle towards healthier guidelines.

Since the Ministry of Health of the Junta de Andalucía launched in 2003 the Comprehensive Diabetes Plan of Andalusia, which is in the update phase, various lines for the prevention of type 2 diabetes have been developed in AndalusiaOf other vascular risk factors, materialized in comprehensive health plans, such as the Plan of Physical Activity and Balanced Food, the Comprehensive Child Obesity Plan and the Comprehensive Tabaquismo Plan of Andalusia.

Prevalence of diabetes

According to the results of the Diabetes Prevalence Study, in Spain and Andalusia it is around 14% and 15% respectively, of the population of 18 years or more.Of the total, a little less than half (6%) does not know having diabetes.According to these data, the number of people with diabetes in Andalusia would be approximately one million and these, 550,000 would be diagnosed.

Of the total people with diabetes, approximately 90-95% would correspond to type 2 diabetes, the 5-10% remaining to type1 diabetes.Gestational diabetes appears only during pregnancy (in 5% of pregnancies).The rest of the cases, diabetes due to specific disorders, are very rare and include forms of the disease linked to genetic alterations, drugs, endocrinological and pancreas diseases, among others.