The American Diabetes Association offers a variety of educational programs for health professionals throughout the year - from consensus building conferences and research symposia to the Association’s Annual Scientific Sessions drawing the largest gathering of the diabetes community in the world.  Among these programs, the Southern Regional Clinical Conference on Diabetes (SRC) has established itself as the premier clinical diabetes conference, targeting primary care physicians and the entire diabetes care team.  In May 2010, SRC will provide an anticipated 500 health professionals with practical tools and knowledge to prevent and manage diabetes, pre-diabetes, and diabetes related complications.

Diabetes & Pre-diabetes: Diabetes now affects nearly 24 million people in the United States, an increase of more than 3 million in approximately two years, according to new 2007 prevalence data estimates released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This means that nearly 8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes.

In addition to the 24 million with diabetes, another 57 million people are estimated to have pre-diabetes, a condition that puts people at increased risk for diabetes. Among people with diabetes, those who do not know they have the disease decreased from 30 percent to 25 percent over a two-year period.

Obesity: Alarming statistics recently released by the CDC indicating that over half of all Americans (about 145 million) are overweight or obese, highlights the need for information on how to deal with this epidemic.  Obesity has clearly been shown to increase the risk for developing many diseases, especially heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. 

CAD & Hypertension: Conclusive evidence now exist showing that treating high blood pressure more intensively in people with type 2 diabetes makes a significant difference in preventing cardiovascular complications and deaths.  Health practitioners and patients should strive to lower blood glucose levels as close to normal as possible and, if high blood pressure is present, to lower it as close to normal as possible.

When you combine this with the many advances in treatment options for people with diabetes over the last few years, it’s clearly time for America to get serious about diabetes . . . a major cause of death by disease. Almost 234,000 people die from diabetes related complications yearly. With direct and indirect costs for diabetes running more than $174 billion annually, the disease and its complications account for about 5 percent of total US health care cost.  The 25^th Annual Southern Regional Conference will be designed to help the primary care practitioner effectively identify and treat pre-diabetes, and choose appropriate interventions in diabetes management that may delay or avoid more life-threatening complications.

Mission & Vision

The mission of the American Diabetes Association is to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. We are passionate about achieving tangible results that benefit people with diabetes. We are not satisfied with the status quo and are committed to continuing improvement.