When Leah Schultz was in her 20s, peace signs, peasant dresses and anti-war picket signs were part of the landscape of her Cow Hollow neighborhood.

"Being single in San Francisco in the '60s was quite an experience," says Leah, now 61. "I marched in peace marches down Geary Boulevard in my crocheted poncho and jeans."

Soon, Leah married, started a family and put her activist days on hold. Family life kept her busy, but over time she became less physically active.

"I was probably 15 to 20 pounds overweight until I got into my 50s and it kept creeping up on me," she says.

During menopause, her weight gain increased until she was about 40 pounds overweight.

"I’m only 5 feet tall, so that’s a lot of weight on my frame," she says. "I wasn’t taking care of myself. I wasn’t exercising, and I went back to work full time in a stressful position."

Then during an unexpected surgery, she received disappointing news. Her high blood sugar prompted her doctor to test her for diabetes and the test came back positive.

In people with diabetes, the body is unable to produce insulin and properly break down sugar, or glucose, in the blood. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body convert sugar, starches and other foods into energy.

Diabetes symptoms include frequent urination, extreme thirst and hunger, unusual weight loss, increased fatigue, irritability and blurry vision. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, impotence and nerve damage.

"There’s a diabetes epidemic in the U.S. because of the aging of the baby boomers," endocrinologist Beatty Ramsay, M.D., says. "The boomer generation has a high prevalence of type II diabetes. And most diabetic boomers are overweight."

Between 1991 and 2003, the nationwide rate of diabetes soared 61 percent, reflecting what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call a 'strong correlation between obesity and development of diabetes.'
In addition to lifestyle changes, ongoing improvements in medications offer hope to baby boomers and others with diabetes.

"We have drugs that are very successful at reducing insulin resistance," Dr. Ramsay says. "And we have drugs that are replacing abdominal hormones called incretins that increase glucose control and weight loss. Down the road, we can expect to truly individualize treatment much better."

At her doctor’s suggestion, Leah turned to Mills-Peninsula’s outpatient diabetes program to get her health on track. Components of the program include diabetes self-management training, a diabetic exercise program and a diabetic weight management program.

"I did very well at first," she says. "I brought my numbers down and didn’t need any medication."

Then her mother became ill and her husband was diagnosed with fatal emphysema. Managing her diabetes slipped on Leah’s priorities list.

When her blood sugar numbers got out of control, she was forced to make a change.

"Thank goodness for good doctors and Mills-Peninsula," she says. "They gave me such good support. They didn’t make me feel guilty. They just helped me know I could improve my health and that I was not a lost cause."

Today, Leah works out three times a week at Mills-Peninsula’s Fitness Center, walks regularly and consults a nutrition counselor as part of the Diabetes Exercise Program. She’s lost 30 pounds since July, is managing her blood sugar and may soon be able to lower her medication.

Her advice for her fellow diabetic boomers?

"Get on it as soon as you can," she says. "I had to work a lot harder the second time around."