Two Aurora University seniors, who hope to become doctors one day, want the community to start talking more about diabetes.

Hlawn Tlang and Blend Dalipi became interested in this disease that affects more than 30 million Americans after taking part in a research project in a health science class last year.

What they found from a local survey of 255 people is that 44% rarely talked about diabetes, 41% displayed poor and neutral attitudes about treatment and 75% were obese and overweight.

The numbers are revealing. But “now that we knew there was such a problem,” said Tlang, “we wanted to do more” than gather statistics.

And so, using their own money, she and Dalipi formed Healing Diabetes with the goal of educating the community about this disease many experts describe as an epidemic.

See Full Page