Authors of The Great Diabetes Epidemic appearing in half-hour show several times on KET channels this week

Dr. Gilbert Friedell and J. Isaac Joyner, co-authors of The Great Diabetes Epidemic: A Manifesto for Control and Prevention, discuss the topic with Dr. Wayne Tuckson in a half-hour "Kentucky Health" program airing on KET and its other channels this week.

"If you know diabetes, you know medicine," Tuckson says in introducing the show, "because diabetes affects everything, from the eyes, to the vascular system, to our extremities. Unfortunately, the incidence of diabetes is increasing, and diabetes is affecting people at a younger and younger age."

In their book, Friedell and Joyner recommend four steps to control the diabetes epidemic: "First, acknowledge that there is an epidemic, and deal with it as a public health problem, with community as well as individual action. . . . Second, our communities must take responsibility for diabetes and pre-diabetes in their populations," partly with "broad-based Community Diabetes Control and Prevention Councils representing all segments of the population in every county. . . . Third, the community and the Kentucky Department for Public Health need more precise information about the magnitude and extent of the epidemic. We therefore advocate universal screening of all residents over the age of 45 in doctors’ offices and in community screening locations. . . . Fourth, in order to prevent as many people with pre-diabetes as possible from developing diabetes, there should be numerous, available, affordable organized prevention programs in accessible community sites."

Here is the broadcast schedule for the program, in order of appearance:

KETKY: Monday, Jan. 4, at 6:30 a.m. ET

KET: Tuesday, Jan. 5, at 5 a.m. ET

KETKY: Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. ET

KETKY: Wednesday, Jan. 6, at 8:30 a.m. ET

KET2: Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. ET

KETKY: Thursday, Jan. 7, at 1:30 p.m. ET

KET2: Friday, Jan. 8, at 7:30 a.m. ET

KETKY: Saturday, Jan. 9, at 6 a.m. ET