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DZD Expert Prof. Fritsche in Telephone Q & A Session

Together with other diabetes experts, Prof. Dr. Andreas Fritsche of the DZD partner institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of Helmholtz Zentrum München at the University of Tübingen will answer questions about the widespread disease on April 17, 2013 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm.

The telephone Q & A session is part of Diabetes Awareness Week in the district of Reutlingen. In cooperation with the Reutlingen newspaper Reutlinger General-Anzeiger, the communal health conference in the district will focus on diabetes mellitus. "It is exemplary how this topic is being approached here – in some respects this is unique in Germany,” said Andreas Fritsche, who will open Diabetes Information Day on April 19th. The event will offer talks by specialists and sports and cooking demonstrations in the District Office.
In the last 25 years, the proportion of diabetes patients in the district "has increased dramatically" and now comprises about eight percent of the population. In 2010, around 70 million euros were spent nationwide on diabetes and its complications, according to a statement in the General-Anzeiger by Dr. Bettina Born, head of the diabetes foot outpatient department at the local hospital, Klinikum am Steinenberg Reutlingen.

Test to Determine Diabetes Risk
The German Diabetes Risk Test ®, created by the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam, also provides further information and serves to assess one’s risk status. During Diabetes Awareness Week, an information leaflet will be available at doctors’ offices, pharmacies, district hospitals and the district health department, and it is always available online on the DZD website.
Besides Professor Fritsche and Dr. Born, Eleonore Morville, head of the diabetes self-help group »Dia-BE-Tiger« in Reutlingen and district chairperson of the Diabetes Federation, and Dr. Udo F. Gundel, a specialist in general medicine and diabetology, will answer questions during the Q & A session. What is important, the experts agree, is that "all players, from the doctors to the self-help groups, are actively involved in networking".