Circles of Support Help People With Diabetes

Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020

Testing blood sugar levels, managing medications, counting carbs, and sticking to an exercise routine -- there are no “days off” when you’re living with diabetes. To keep the condition in check, people with diabetes need to maintain a daily regimen to ward off serious complications including kidney and heart disease.

Support can come from different places for individuals to help manage their condition -- imagine three concentric circles and a person with diabetes in the middle.

Circle 1 – Family and friends: People with diabetes need encouragement, assistance, and accountability. Because family and friends are physically and emotionally close, they’re the best people for the job. What does that look like? It’s different for everyone but it could mean being a workout buddy, helping keep track of blood sugar testing schedules, sharing in healthy meal prep, or just offering a shoulder to lean on during the toughest days.  

Circle 2 -- Care team: Having a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, nurses, and dietitians to work with gives people with diabetes the medical and educational support they need to move from diagnosis through treatment and onto daily management. Dietitians are a crucial part of any diabetes care team. They can help patients with:

• Confirming correct medication use.
• Ensuring nutritional needs are being met.
• Encouraging regular medical check-ups and HbA1c testing.
• Reinforcing compliance with lifestyle changes.

Circle 3 – Community programs: Because more than 30 million American adults are living with diabetes, there are many support services available to them from educational programs and tool kits to support groups. ¹ Some of the most popular programs are meal delivery services that ship diabetes-friendly meals right to the home, making it easy for people with diabetes to get the right nutrition. In fact, many health plans and Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans now include home-delivered meals as a benefit to help members with chronic diseases including diabetes.

These programs are not only popular, but they’re also effective. One of our regional health plans ran a 30-day pilot study to provide home-delivered, nutritious, fully prepared, refrigerated meals to select members with diabetes. The results were excellent:

• 0.25 point drop in A1c.
• 3.9-pound average weight loss.
• 84 percent fewer inpatient visits.
• 41 percent fewer ER visits.
• 66 percent fewer readmissions.

When they’re surrounded with the right support and have a clear understanding of their condition, people with diabetes can manage effectively and thrive. Mom’s Meals is proud to support people with diabetes by offering refrigerated, diabetes-friendly meals, delivered to homes nationwide. See our diabetes-friendly menus.  

1. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf