Assess your risk with the diabetes alert test!
Mar. 25, 2025
By Mary Wade Burnside
“Do you have a mother, father, brother or sister with diabetes?
“Are you physically active?”
These are two of the questions asked as part of the online Diabetes Online Risk Test, created by the American Diabetes Association and advertised on Diabetes Alert Day, which takes place on the fourth Tuesday of March, which this year is today, March 25.
If you take just a minute, you can learn on a scale of 1 to 10 what your risk is of having diabetes.
I was happy to find out that my risk is low, but the answer also explained that my risk for diabetes changes over time and increases with age.
That means that while it’s great to take the test now, you also want to continue to keep an eye out in the future to make sure you don’t develop diabetes. Then if you do develop diabetes, that means you can begin to get treatment as soon as possible.
A fact sheet from the American Diabetes Association states that approximately 226,300 adults in West Virginia, or 15.9% of the adult population, have diagnosed diabetes. Every year, an estimated 8,400 adults in West Virginia are diagnosed with diabetes, according to its most recent fact sheet.
And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov), West Virginia has the highest death rate from diabetes compared to any other state, at 41.1 per 100,000 total population in 2022. The next closest state is Mississippi, with 34.7 per 100,000, putting West Virginia in a class of its own.
What is diabetes? It’s a problem with your body that causes blood glucose — or sugar — levels to rise higher than normal, according to the American Diabetes Association’s website. When this happens, it’s also called hyperglycemia. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes.
If you have type 2 diabetes, your body does not use insulin properly. This is called insulin resistance. At first, your pancreas makes extra insulin to make up for it. But, over time it isn't able to keep up and can't make enough insulin to keep your blood glucose at normal levels.
About 38 million Americans have diabetes, and about one in four don’t know it. That’s a problem because the earlier you get help, the easier it will be to manage symptoms and avoid complications. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people who don’t have diabetes — and at a younger age. Diabetes also is the leading cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations and adult-onset blindness. And if you smoke, you are 30-40 percent more likely to develop diabetes than non-smokers.
Also, one in three Americans has prediabetes. Prediabetes means a person's blood glucose level is higher than normal, but not high enough yet to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC. People with prediabetes are on the road to develop type 2 diabetes and are also at increased risk for serious health problems such as stroke and heart disease.
If you do have prediabetes, there is still a chance that you can avoid getting type 2 diabetes with lifestyle changes that include increased physical activity, changes in your diet and weight loss.
Prediabetes often can be reversed through lifestyle changes such as increased physical activity, weight loss and dietary changes. The earlier people are diagnosed with prediabetes, the more likely it is that they can reverse it and prevent type 2 diabetes.
So take a couple of minutes and take the test. And if the results concern you, talk to your health care provider about getting tested. You can also learn more information from the CDC’s web page.