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Diabetes Crisis Grips Southern California

Press Contact: Jason Millman (213)-821-0099

Physicians anticipate the rate of diabetes among the elderly will increase sharply in the coming years. About 45 percent of all adults in California have pre-diabetes or undiagnosed diabetes.

Sarah Cooke listened as her aging diabetic patients vented about trying to cope with the pernicious disease.

“Guilt and denial, that’s pretty much it,” said a woman with short gray hair.

“Confused,” said another woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses. “I don’t know what I can eat and what I can’t.”

Cooke, a clinical dietitian at Loma Linda University Health Care, leads a weekly class as part of an effort to combat the diabetes crisis in Southern California, with elderly residents particularly vulnerable. Cooke recently discovered that about 70 percent of all patients who enter Loma Linda University Medical Center are diabetic.

Read the full story at Los Angeles Daily News.