Awareness Diabetes And Your Heart (NAPSA)—Explaining the risk factors for hypertension and dia- betes, the links between them and the Medicare benefits that can keep seniors healthy is the purpose of Connect the Dots: Diabetes and Your Heart—How Medicare Helps, an initiative by the National Council on Aging. Risk factors include beingoverweight, physically inactive, high glucose, high cholesterol, consistently high blood pressure, age, gender, smoking,race, family history and waist circumference. Both diabetes and hypertension can be treated and managed through regular exercise, a healthy diet, taking medication as prescribed, not smoking, and monitoring your glucoselevels. Medicare covers diabetes screenings, supplies and self-management training, eye exams, glaucoma tests, foot exams, medical nutrition therapy services and smoking cessation. Medicare prescription drug planstypically cover insulin, oral therapies for diabetes, and hypertension medications. For more information, log on to www.ncoa.org. For information on Medicare, call 1-800-MEDICARE or log on to www.medicare.gov. The initiative is supported by a grant from Novartis Pharmaceuticals. w------------ Beeneeenneennee Note to Editors: November is National Diabetes Month.
