Marsh Supermarkets launches diabetes education program
INDIANAPOLIS — Marsh Supermarkets on Tuesday recognized National Public Health Week with the introduction of a program to help people with diabetes better understand, manage and live with the disease — more than 9% of Indiana residents have been diagnosed with diabetes, the grocer noted.
“Marsh wants to be part of the solution in helping to reverse these diabetes trends in Indiana,” stated Joe Kelley, chairman, CEO and president of Marsh Supermarkets. “With our new Eat Right Live Right With Diabetes program, Marsh now offers a full suite of nutrition, wellness and pharmacy programs that address this growing public health problem — from our efforts to combat childhood obesity, to in-store and online nutrition resources, to our pharmacy program that offers free diabetes medicines.”
The Marsh Eat Right Live Right With Diabetes website offers customers:
- Health content from leading experts. Each quarter, health and medical professionals from Mayo Clinic will provide information on topics of interest to people living with diabetes — from monitoring and testing, to medication and treatment options, to exercise and nutrition, to pregnancy and diabetes, to health complications associated with disease progression;
- An interactive, video-based cookbook titled “Inspired" that features diabetes-friendly recipes with nutritional values and dietary exchanges, colorful photos, chef’s tips and step-by-step video demos, which also can be viewed on shoppers’ smartphones. The cookbook will be updated quarterly with new recipes and video demos; and
- Instructional videos. A Marsh pharmacist and registered dietitian regularly will offer guidance on ways that diabetes patients can manage their disease — from instruction on the proper use of over-the-counter medications to tips on how to read food labels.
Marsh’s registered dietitians also will host store tours and work with customers to develop shopping strategies and diabetes-friendly meal plans. For a list of scheduled store tours, go to Marsh.net/pharmacy/diabetes_care.
And with the launch of Eat Right Live Right With Diabetes, Marsh will extend its Diabetes Care pharmacy program through May 31, 2013. Forty Marsh and MainStreet Market pharmacies in Indiana will continue to offer more than half a dozen oral diabetes medicines, as well as lancets for testing blood sugar, at no cost to Marsh customers. A prescription for the medicines and lancets is required.
Since the program’s launch in November 2011, nearly 6,000 prescriptions for free diabetes medicines have been filled by Marsh pharmacists. The diabetes care program provides patients with a free diabetes monitoring kit and free training on how to use and read a diabetes meter.