Eat, drink, be merry and monitor your sugar intake @UWMedicineHealth

Uploaded December 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

The holidays bring joy, but also potential challenges for people managing diabetes. Unlike the rest of the year, the holidays mean more food, especially goodies laden with sugar.

Dr. Lorena Alarcon-Casas Wright, a UW Medicine endocrinologist, offers practical advice for navigating this festive season while keeping blood-sugar levels in check.

“The more active we are, the healthier we are, the better our blood sugar is,” she said. “Think moderation, watch portions, being mindful of ... do I really need to eat this?”

Wright encourages people with diabetes to monitor blood sugar before holiday events, and to stay active. Those small considerations, she says, can allow people with diabetes to revel in the season with their friends and families.

Eat, drink, be merry and monitor your sugar intake

Cyclospora outbreak raises health and food concerns

UW Medicine Pre-Transplant Pharmacist Education Part 2

Celebrating Seattles 2024 Nobel Prize with Professor David Baker

5 Functional Fitness Exercises You Can Do Anywhere

$One spark can cause lasting harm this July Fourth The Fourth of July is a time for celebration, but it can quickly turn tragic. Every year, Harborview Medical Center sees approximately 55 people hurt by fireworks during the holiday. “Were going to see a lot of people who completely changed their lives because they made one simple, bad decision and now either theyve lost a hand, theyve lost their eyes, theyve lost another appendage, or worse,” said Dr. Arvin Akhavan, an emergency medicine physician at UW Medicine. “Fireworks are powerful explosives that can cause devastating damage to hands and other parts of the body in a split second,” said Dr. Chelsea Boe, an orthopedic surgeon at UW Medicine. She added that these types of injuries can change your life. “The injuries themselves are blast injuries,” Boe said. “So, its a huge amount of force that tends to have an explosive impact on the hand. So, they cause fractures, dislocations, which means that the bones come out of joint, they come out of place.” Boe says the safest thing you can do is to stay away from personal fireworks. She recommends going to watch a professional fireworks display instead. And if you do light fireworks, do so from a safe distance and don’t light them in your hands.$

Harborview surgeons reflect on Veterans Day