This is National Diabetes Month, and Minnesotans are being urged to learn how to prevent the disease and its complications. Certified diabetes educator Teresa Pearson says the incidence of the disease continues to rise. She estimates that one in three will have diabetes by the year 2050.

"Every year, about 20,000 Minnesotans are newly diagnosed with diabetes. Interestingly, we're seeing people get diagnosed at much younger ages, which has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic."

Pearson says keys to preventing or managing diabetes include eating healthy food, being physically active and losing weight. She says even moderate changes in those areas can reduce risk.

The risk factors include being overweight, a lack of physical activity and ethnicity, she says, and family history is also an indicator.

"However, having diabetes in the family doesn't say it has to happen. That's why we tell people who have diabetes in their family, 'Focus on maintaining a healthy weight, keeping physically active and just eat really healthy foods, and you're going to decrease the likelihood or at least delay the onset of diabetes.'"

Pearson says having eye problems, including going blind, is one of the related health issues, but certainly is not the only one that affects those with diabetes.

"Diabetics have heart disease and stroke two to four times more often, compared to those without diabetes. They also have kidney disease. Diabetes is the leading cause of lower extremity amputation. Those are really the big things: eyes, kidneys, heart, the blood vessels and also the nerves."