Mrs. America Antonia Ortiz has been dealing with diabetes for 42 years and daily injects herself with a dose of to keep levels under control.
You eat breakfast like any other thing, when you eat another level then you check again and that’s how you carry on a fight that doesn’t end.
He periodically visits his general practitioner, Dr. José Goris, in Upper Manhattan, who, in addition to diabetes, checks for other health conditions.
Mrs. Ortiz has suffered from diabetes since she was 31 years old, a reality that is seen more and more frequently today.
“I am very careful with what I eat too, because you have to be careful with that, I like to eat a lot of vegetables, which is what controls sugar the most. If I eat rice, it already rises more. There is a day that I eat it”, says Ortiz smiling.
“Before, diabetes was a disease of people between 40 and 50 years old, and there are already children with diabetes, a product of obesity, overweight, lack of exercise, and lack of education about the food we eat”keep going.
Although she has Medicare health insurance, millions of Americans must pay for insulin out of pocket. However, with the high costs of this medicine, up to $700 per month, for many it is not an option.
José Goris, is a general practitioner and thinks prevention is better than cure:
“And consequently, people stop using the medicine and the cost of the disease multiplies because they will end up in hospitals, they will end up having severe complications, kidney failure, heart attacks, strokeamputations, that is to say that the cost of insulin has been lowered will benefit millions of people.”
Precisely, the pharmaceutical company LILY will reduce the prices of insulin in the United States by 70%.
The company’s announcement follows a long battle by US President Joe Biden to regulate drug prices.
Lilly recorded more than three billion dollars in profit from the sale of insulin in 2022
Dr. Goris says that diabetes can be prevented by changing your lifestyle.
“Since people are obese, you have to try to push them to lose weight, because it is a very important factor for diabetes, once the patient is diabetic, sometimes they can be treated with medicine by mouth, other times they have to be treated with insulin, but all will require diet and exercise, as a way to help control diabetes, of course periodic and routine check-ups”, indicates Goris.
And according to figures from the American Diabetes Association, there are at least 30 million Americans with the disease, 8 million of them dependent on a dose of insulin every day.
