UF marks Diabetes Awareness Month with Century Tower event

November 16, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida’s Century Tower will glow blue on Friday night to raise awareness about diabetes.

Blue lights will illuminate Century Tower in an annual lighting ceremony that honors World Diabetes Day. Keynote speakers Dr. Desmond Schatz, medical director of UF’s Diabetes Center of Excellence, and Dr. Ken Cusi, chair of adult endocrinology at UF, will speak. As the lights go on at 6 p.m., the carillon will play, and spectators will be given bubbles to blow.

“We hope that the lighting ceremony will get people thinking about whether or not they are at risk for diabetes,” said Kathryn Parker, director of the diabetes self management program at UF’s Diabetes Center of Excellence. “We’re not asking for money. We’re just asking for people to educate themselves about diabetes.”

According to Parker, 79 million Americans are at risk for diabetes and don’t even know they could have the disease. That’s on top of the 26 million who are diagnosed.

In 2008, UF became the first university in the nation to host a lighting ceremony for Diabetes Awareness Month.
In addition to the lighting ceremony, UF will mark Diabetes Awareness Month by offering blood sugar screenings on campus from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday in the atrium in Shands at UF medical center, and on Friday on the Reitz Student Union Colonnade. Screenings are free and open to the public.

The lighting ceremony is sponsored by the UF College of Medicine, the UF department of pathology, immunology, and laboratory medicine, and the UF department of pediatric endocrinology.
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