The Suga Project Foundation, a new diabetes education platform and digital community, introduces its Diabetes Mastery Program, a combination of online courses and health coaching to help women over 40 lower their A1C. The 12-week program includes interactive exercises, meal planning, peer and professional support, access to specialized resources, and guidance for patients to enhance communication with their healthcare providers. To bring the program to a broader audience, the foundation has launched a crowdfunding campaign to run through April 5 to raise $250,000 so it can offer scholarships to 1,000 women to gain access to the program.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2017 more than 10.8 million American women were diagnosed with diabetes. A more pressing concern is that there is an estimated 4.1 million women who are undiagnosed and unaware of their condition. Nearly 1.4 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in the United States every year. The risk for developing diabetes increases for women over age 45 and for all non-white Americans.

“We realize there are many barriers to women, particularly in underserved communities, to gain access to reliable, health-related information,” said Natalie Pauls, founder and president of the Suga Project Foundation, and a certified integrative medicine health coach. “Through the Diabetes Mastery Program, we walk alongside our sisters to help them understand diabetes and the associated risks of poorly controlled diabetes, mentally process a diagnosis and better manage their lifetime care of this chronic disease.”

The foundation’s goals are to provide a supportive network to decrease the stress and uncertainty of a diabetes diagnosis and to help women better navigate their Type 2 Diabetes care to improve long-term health outcomes. Pauls, a healthcare researcher, established the Suga Project Foundation after recognizing there is a gap between what physicians tell patients they must do to control their A1C and what patients understand and implement. When she learned of the disparities in amputation rates as a result of undiagnosed or poorly treated diabetes, she said, “it brought me to tears.”

“An amputation is the fastest way to take a person with diabetes out,” Pauls said. “I saw a need to bridge this gap and help both physician and patient be successful.”

Type 2 Diabetes is a prevalent but largely preventable disease. For more information about the Suga Project Foundation go to The Suga Project.