By J. A. Dunn

LAKELAND — An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

That old saying proved true at the 2003 Florida Annual Conference Event.

For the first time ever the annual gathering featured a health fair May 29 and 30 in the exhibition hall of the Lakeland Center. It offered free cholesterol screenings and blood sugar tests as an indicator of diabetes.

The health fair diagnosed 12 people with significantly high blood sugar levels, indicating a risk for developing diabetes, according to Ginny Pearcy, coordinator of the health fair and the Florida Conference Parish Nurses ministry.

Nearly 5.9 million people, or one-third of the 17 million diabetics in the United States, are unaware they have the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Diabetics do not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy.†The ADA says the cause of diabetes is not known, although genetics and environmental factors, such as obesity and lack of exercise, appear to play a role in developing the disease.

Pearcy said two people were also sent from the Lakeland Center to local emergency rooms because their blood pressures were high enough to put them at risk of suffering a stroke.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel carrying oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts, according to the National Stroke Association. Part of the brain cannot get the blood and oxygen it needs, so it starts to die, often paralyzing parts of the body.

“We had about 38 health-related vendors,” said Pearcy, a member of Grace United Methodist Church in Merritt Island.

June Johns, co-chair of the Conference Council on Ministries’ Health and Wholeness Ministry Team and a member of Suntree United Methodist Church, Melbourne, said a steady stream of people went through the fair.

“I would think the more healthy people we have, the more spiritual people can become because the physical and spiritual are connected,” Johns said.

Toni Parrish, co-chair of the Health and Wholeness Team, said she hopes the fair returns in the future.

“We need to become more responsible for our physical selves,” said Parrish, who attends First United Methodist Church of Port St. John. “…We need to be more proactive in these times of skyrocketing health care costs and high prescription drugs.

“We need to take better care of ourselves so we can be of better service to God.”