Mr Frankonis, who enjoyed a successful 20-plus-year career as a pharmacist, more recently became a Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist with a modest practice behind Starbucks at 34 Church Hill Road. He sat down for an interview with The Newtown Bee to review some of the information he, his committee, and the Lions will be promoting throughout Newtown in the coming months.

Long an organization that has battled one of the primary side-effects of diabetes, sight-related impairments, the Lions Club decided to broaden its focus to target that primary and insidious cause — insidious, Mr Frankonis said, because it “is often very gradual, and may develop without any symptoms at all.”

“Sadly, the diagnosis is often made only after a complication of the disease happens,” he said. “Weight gain is common because insulin can convert excess blood sugar into triglycerides or a blood fat, which can then be stored in fat cells, which have the ability to multiply and grow larger and larger.”

Explaining the physiology of diabetes in a handout developed by the local Lions Club, Mr Frankonis continued, “Most of the food we eat is broken down into sugar or glucose. The sugar enters the blood stream for delivery throughout the body, which is why it’s called blood sugar.”

What Is Insulin?

Mr Frankonis said insulin is a hormone manufactured in the pancreas that the body can produce to metabolize blood sugar. Insulin actually facilitates or enables the sugar to pass into and be utilized by our cells.

“This sugar fuels the cells that results in the power for our hearts to beat, our lungs to breathe, and so on,” he said.

A substantially less widespread form of diabetes — type 1 (formerly called juvenile diabetes because it typically begins in childhood) — requires those affected to supplement the insulin their own body will not or cannot produce. Without daily injections of insulin, sugar remains in the blood instead of being processed to power the cells and the condition can become disabling or even life-threatening.

The most common form of diabetes, type 2, affects 90 to 95 percent of individuals that have the condition. In this case, the pancreas produces enough insulin, but the body ceases to use it effectively, Mr Frankonis said.

“The cells resist the insulin and its role in getting the sugar into the cells,” he said. “And the pancreas responds by continuing to produce more and more insulin. When the cells do not respond, high levels of glucose build up in the bloodstream leading to type 2 diabetes.”

When excess insulin is unused by the body, the pancreas eventually slows or stops manufacturing it, so people with the condition actually have to take prescription medication to lower blood sugar levels, if or when incorporating dietary and lifestyle changes fail to control the problem.

Ultimately, when the cells are starved for sugar, they cannot be energized and, over time, high blood sugar can damage blood vessels, nerves, kidneys, and one’s eyes, affecting sight and in certain cases contributing to blindness or severe impairment.

Health-Related Expenses

As a clinical nutritionist with such a long-tenured background in the pharmaceutical field, Mr Frankonis also knows that today, one in two Americans are overweight, which currently contributes to a $100 billion cost in health-related expenses, which, frustratingly, can be prevented.

Besides the increasing likelihood of hastening type 2 diabetes, Americans’ expanding waistlines are also contributing to non-diabetes-related heart disease, colon cancer, premature deterioration of joints, and a host of other ailments. And despite the increasing intake of food, nearly 50 percent of all Americans are nutritionally deficient, especially those over the age of 55.

More disturbing in fact, is the documentation Mr Frankonis provided pointing to the US Surgeon General’s Nutrition and Health Report, circa 1998, which attributed nearly two-thirds of all deaths to some level of nutritional deficiency.

With diabetes as one of the primary preventable diseases, that is tied in many cases to weight gain, obesity, or nutritional deficiency, Mr Frankonis and the local Lions Club is planning a number of activities in the coming months to keep the cause and its prevention on the minds of their Newtown friends and neighbors.

In the short run, any initiation or increase in one’s level of exercise, and eating more wisely can put one on the road to improved health. In his professional capacity, and in relation to serving as the point professional for the Lions’ new campaign, Mr Frankonis welcomes residents to contact him for assistance or more information.

He can be reached by phone at 203-426-9592 or via email at frankonis@sbcglobal.net. Video segments of his interview can also be found at newtownbee.com.