I have to wonder why this is so? But, not for too long. With all that misinformation in print and on the air waves by our news media, limited health literacy is as common place as illiteracy is in many subjects. This is the shame of our news media today and one more of the reasons that so many are ceasing publication – people just don't trust them anymore.
Unfortunately, many people still do not have access to the internet and thus are not health literate when it comes to diabetes and heart health.
That being said, researchers studied 14000 patients with diabetes in Northern California and defined limited health literacy being a result of patients having difficulties reading health-related materials. They also determined that these people are at a higher risk of significant hypoglycemia.
While the researchers did state that, if left untreated, hypoglycemia may lead to unconsciousness and have long-term consequences, but they failed to mention that uncontrolled hypoglycemia can also cause death.
Hopefully, between the doctors and articles about this, patients can learn the dangers of improper diabetes care. See the article in several sources, diabetes in control, examiner dot com Chicago, and pr news wire dot com on dates of May 19 to 22, 2010. For another site on health literacy read this site.
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