Health warnings and lifestyles

Sorry.

Can you just give us a quick explanation of what HbA1c is?

So this is your glycated hemoglobin.

Your hemoglobin lives for about three months.

Um, so the, it, the, it's a blood test.

It can look back over those three months and give you a, a number, which is how sticky the glucose is to your, uh, hemoglobin.

So you, so for somebody who gets a reading of 40 to 42, they're sort of seen as pre-diabetes.

Under 40, you're okay.

And then it, for those people living with diabetes, then, then it will give them an idea of how well you're doing.

The more you understand, it's like anything, isn't it? You know, we talk about good self-management, good self-education, and it is about how much you understand and how much you want to take on board to help make those differences.

It sounds like, I mean, obviously you, you were talking about y- you see differences in, in, uh, men's and women's responses.

Was that part of the, the research kind of interesting for you?

Really interesting, and I'm sure I can talk to Zoe maybe and yourselves, and we can, you know, incorporate those findings.

I'm sure the rest of the team would be really interested in that.

Interestingly, I'm going to Hartlepool today, where we're running one of our wellness events for people to come along and learn more.

And it's, they tend to be in the older age bracket, but those people are motivated enough to come along, listen to some healthcare professionals, dieticians.

Uh, we get endocrinologists to come.

Sometimes we get researchers to come and present their work to people.

But again, you've gotta be, uh, self-motivated enough, or your partner, [laughs] may be motivating you to say, "Come on, we're going." Around 50 to 60 people.

If you think how many people in the, that area are living with type 2 diabetes, what would we have to do to try to im- improve that connection and that desire to go along, you know, rather than go shopping on Saturday morning or, I don't know, plan to go to the football.

Do you know what I mean? There's a lot of things impacting on people's lives, and is one of them, am I really that interested in my diabetes? Well, yes, you should be, shouldn't you? But it's, it's a difficult one.

It's that motivation.

I don't, uh, normally talk about myself in, in the podcast, but it's kind of interesting to me.

I, I was diagnosed with having high blood pressure a few years ago, and I think it's, uh, it, it is a bit of a generalization, but I think it's a, a fairly male response to do what I did and pretend it wasn't happening for a, [laughs] for, for a while.

Uh, before I ask, uh, the next question, Zoe, did you wanna jump in on any of that?