RALEIGH, NC– DiabetesSisters is pleased to announce the first annual Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD. The Conference, a landmark national event specifically for women with diabetes, will take place on May 22-23, 2010 at the Marriott City Center in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, bringing a unique, life-changing learning experience to women with diabetes. DiabetesSisters and TCOYD are nationwide non-profit organizations with similar missions of motivating and educating people with diabetes. “Before founding DiabetesSisters, it was clear that there was a crucial need for information and support specifically as it relates to living with diabetes as a female,” said Brandy Barnes, Founder/Executive Director of DiabetesSisters. “Women experience diabetes differently than men-- physically, emotionally, in the workplace, in family life-- throughout our years with the disease.” The Weekend for Women Conference is an overnight event and is open to all women with diabetes--including type 1, Type 2, gestational, pre-diabetes, MODY, and LADA. It will begin at 5:00 pm, Saturday, May 22, 2010, at the Marriott City Center (immediately following the Raleigh TCOYD Conference) and end at 6:00 pm, Sunday, May 23, 2010. The Weekend for Women Conference will kick-off on Saturday evening with dinner and complimentary massages for all participants. Sunday’s events will feature lectures by leading specialists from around the country and interactive sessions for participants. Participants are invited to choose from a wide range of gender-specific topics related to diabetes prevention and treatment, body image, pregnancy, menopause, health risks, nutrition, fitness and much more. Many women with diabetes and the practitioners who treat them are unaware that women with diabetes face increased risks for clinical depression and osteoporosis compared to women who do not have diabetes. Women with diabetes are also at risk of developing premature menopause and consequent increased risks of cardiovascular disease. In fact, women with diabetes are up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than are women who do not have diabetes. And the consequences are serious – deaths from heart and blood vessel disease in women with diabetes have increased by 23 percent over the past 30 years, while the death rate from cardiovascular disease has dropped by 27 percent in women without diabetes. Registration for the Weekend for Women Conference will open on January 1, 2010. Please visit www.diabetessisters.org/weekend-for-women-conference to register. Participation is limited to the first 100 registrants. The registration fee of $100 covers each participant’s overnight stay in a single room at the Marriott City Center, dinner and a massage on Saturday, attendance at seven educational sessions on Sunday, breakfast, lunch and snacks on Sunday, and a Weekend for Women t-shirt, tote bag, and travel mug. A limited number of scholarships for the Conference will be available and can be found at www.diabetessisters.org/weekend-for-women-conference. “Serving on the Board of DiabetesSisters has been an eye-opening experience for me,” said John Buse, MD, PhD, founding DiabetesSisters Board Member and Chief of the Endocrinology Division at the UNC-CH School of Medicine. “Although clinical experience showed me that women experience diabetes differently from men, it wasn’t until recently that I realized the depth of these differences.” Sponsors of the first annual Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD include Sanofi-aventis, Roche Diagnostics, GlaxoSmithKline, Aetna Foundation, Bayer HealthCare, and Kerr Drug. About DiabetesSisters DiabetesSisters is a North Carolina-based 501c3 non-profit health organization whose mission is to improve the health and quality of life of women with, and those at risk of developing, diabetes; and to advocate on their behalf. The organization’s key initiatives include the Diabetes Buddy Program, the Women’s Forum, Ask the Experts Column, Weekly Blogs, local DiabetesSisters Gatherings, and an Annual Weekend for Women Conference. For more information, please visit http://www.diabetessisters.org. About TCOYD TCOYD is a California-based 501c3 diabetes education organization. This is the 105th in the national series of conferences that the not-for-profit has presented since 1995. More than 2000 participants are expected at the Raleigh TCOYD Conference. For more information, call 800-998-2693 or visit http://www.tcoyd.org. #### |
