Kellogg Community College will mark World Diabetes Day Nov. 14 with a free event focused on increasing community knowledge and awareness about diabetes.
KCC’s Communitywide Health Fair and Screening event will run from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, in the Binda Performing Arts Center, on campus at 450 North Ave. in Battle Creek. The event is free and open to the public.
The event is a collaborative offering presented by KCC’s Student Nursing Association, the District 6360 Rotary Action Group for Diabetes, the Rotary Club of Battle Creek and Cereal City Sunrise Rotary Club. Activities will include general walk-in health screenings offered through the duration of the evening and a presentation starting at 6:15 p.m. by Dr. Michael Valitutto, a diabetes educator and medical director of the Ascension Borgess Hospital Borgess Diabetes and Endocrine Center in Kalamazoo.
November is National Diabetes Month, and Rotary International has made increasing awareness about the chronic disease a major organizational objective, creating the Rotary Action Group for Diabetes (RAG-D) to highlight the condition.
Rotary District 6360 – which covers 13 counties in southwest Michigan – and the associated District 6360 Rotary Action Group for Diabetes are working to help area clubs educate members and their communities on the Rotary’s efforts. The KCC event is one of several presentations planned around the district throughout the month.
“I’m truly excited about our efforts in bringing diabetes awareness and education to our community,” TR Shaw, a member of KCC’s Board of Trustees and the RAG-D Board, said. “We are facing a global epidemic of diabetes and it’s especially acute right here in our own nation and region.”
According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 38 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes, and nearly 23% are undiagnosed. In Michigan, the ADA estimates approximately 855,000 adults, or 10.8% of the population, have diagnosed diabetes, leading to additional negative health outcomes and costing the state around $9.7 billion per year.
For more information about diabetes, visit the ADA website at diabetes.org. For more information about the Rotary Action Group for Diabetes, visit rag-diabetes.org.
About Dr. Valitutto
Michael Valitutto, DO, has been instrumental in the development of both inpatient and outpatient protocols at Ascension Borgess Hospital. He was the clinical leader for the acquisition of National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Recognition for a Diabetes Center of Excellence and all of Ascension Borgess and is actively involved as the principal investigator within the Borgess Research Institute in numerous research studies of diabetes.
Valitutto is the lead physician for diabetes care management at Ascension Borgess Hospital, is involved in designing health care strategies for more than 8,000 patients with diabetes and has developed and initiated a Diabetes Transition Service linking inpatient and outpatient diabetes care.
Valitutto also runs a weight-management program and offers a range of medical interventions to promote the prevention, treatment and management of obesity, including exercise physiology, medical nutrition therapy and medical weight loss therapies, as well as the medical management side of bariatric intervention.
His clinical expertise includes obesity management, difficult to treat blood pressure, lipid disorders and thyroid disease.
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