My blog is a place in which I can share my knowledge and expertise simply for all involved or living with diabetes, including the innocent who stumble across my website or blog and take time to look, read and learn.

As Diabetes Complete Care UK takes shape, there are expectations:

• A website to let people know about the business.

• Self-promotion people need to know about you, so social media is the way forward Facebook, twitter etc.

And finally…

A blog.

Okay sounds like a good idea. So, here I am a Diabetes Specialist Nurse with over 20 years’ experience and still surprised by the sheer lack of knowledge patients have about their diabetes.

NICE regulators for guidance, who put in place a technical appraisal meaning it must be done. Especially for newly diagnosed Patient Education for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes; you may have heard of DAFNE, BERTIE, XPERT, DESMOND all accredited, researched patient-centred, self-management education programs.

I needed help what do carers and those living with diabetes need to know?

So, I asked one of my Practice Nurse colleagues who has insight into what people with diabetes need or want. She works with a high Asian population GP Practice and, who are known to be at greater risk of diabetes.

• She told me to write about the risk factors, I was somewhat amazed, as anyone who takes a special interest in a subject instantly knows where to go for answers.

• She asked if I could possibly come up with simple information for easy translation.

Straight away I said Diabetes UK, they translate all their information into a variety of languages.

She surprised me by saying that the Asian community is unaware of Diabetes UK and have no idea how to access the information. This made me truly sad. The number of good works carried out by this charity and the monies ploughed into research to ensure that there is equity across their services and still there are major gaps.

So, here are risk factors taken from the Diabetes UK website:

• You are over 40 (or over 25 if you are South Asian).

• You have a close family member with diabetes (parent, brother or sister).

• You are overweight, with a large waist size (over 80cm (31.5 inches) for women, 94cm (37 inches) for men, or 89cm (35 inches) for South Asian men).

• Being of South Asian, Black African, African Caribbean descent – even if you were born in the UK.

• You have ever had high blood pressure, a heart attack or a stroke.

• You’re a woman with polycystic ovary syndrome and overweight.

• If you’re a woman and had diabetes whilst pregnant (called gestational) or given birth to a baby over 10 pounds.

• If you have a severe mental illness for which you take medication (such as schizophrenia, bipolar illness or depression).

• You’ve been told you have impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG).

Note: Some of these risk factors are genetic factors and there is little you can do to reduce them, so it’s best to concentrate on those you can change, such as your weight.

What does not cause diabetes (Diabetes UK):

• Viruses or germs – you cannot catch diabetes like a cold.

• Stress, though it may make the symptoms worse in people who already have the condition.

• An accident or an illness won’t cause diabetes but may reveal the condition if it is already there.