Publix Providing No-charge Diabetes Screenings

Publix Super Markets plans to offer free diabetes screenings at more than 800 of its stores this year. No appointments are necessary, and customers will receive blood glucose test results on-site within a few minutes, along with diabetes educational material.

“As both a supermarket and pharmacy, Publix is the ideal setting in which to promote healthy living,” noted Maria Brous, director of media and community relations at the Lakeland, Fla.-based grocer, which operates 1,036 stores in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee, and employs 148,000 associates. “Offering these free screenings will hopefully assist our customers in early detection and allow them to benefit from our diabetes program, which launched last March offering free Metformin for Type II diabetes patients.”

The screenings will be conducted by Cholestcheck Corp., a Greenville, S.C.-based health-and-wellness screening company, and sponsored in part by Bayer HealthCare Diabetes Care, a Tarrytown, N.Y.-based provider of diabetes monitoring systems and other products and services for people with diabetes.

For a complete listing of health screenings dates and times, customers can visit www.publix.com/pharmacy and click on the “Health Screenings” link.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 25.8 million people in the United States have diabetes -- 7 million of them undiagnosed. In a study published last year, the CDC projected that up to one in three U.S. adults could suffer from the condition by 2050 if current trends continue.