People with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of many serious health problems, including heart attack, stroke, vision loss, and amputation. But by keeping your diabetes in check ? that means maintaining good blood sugar control ? and knowing how to recognize a problem and what to do about it should one occur, you can prevent many of these serious complications of diabetes.

Heart Attack

Heart disease and stroke are the top causes of death and disability in people with diabetes. Heart attack symptoms may appear suddenly or be subtle, with only mild pain and discomfort. If you experience any of the following heart attack warning signs, call 911 immediately:

• Chest discomfort that feels like pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center of your chest, lasting for a short time or going away and returning
• Pain elsewhere, including the back, jaw, stomach, or neck; or pain in one or both arms
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea or lightheadedness

Stroke

If you suddenly experience any of the following stroke symptoms, call 911 immediately. As with a heart attack, immediate treatment can be the difference between life and death. Stroke warning signs may include :

• Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm, or leg, especially if it occurs on one side of the body
• Feeling confused
• Difficulty walking and talking and lacking coordination
• Developing a severe headache for no apparent reason

Nerve Damage

People with diabetes are at increased risk of nerve damage, or diabetic neuropathy, due to uncontrolled high blood sugar. Nerve damage associated with type 2 diabetes can cause a loss of feeling in your feet, which makes you more vulnerable to injury and infection. You may get a blister or cut on your foot that you don't feel and, unless you check your feet regularly, an infection can develop. Untreated infections can result in gangrene (death of tissue) and ultimately amputation of the affected limb. A recent large study from Sweden of 2,480 patients with diabetic foot ulcers found that certain factors increased the likelihood of amputation, including being male and having had diabetes for longer than 23 years.

Diabetes can also make it more difficult for your body to fight infections, causing skin problems. Various skin conditions are linked to diabetes, and even the most minor cuts or sores can turn serious fast. Any bumps, cuts, or scrapes should be cleaned and treated with an antibiotic cream and monitored carefully.

If you notice any of the following symptoms, see your doctor:

• Inflammation and tenderness anywhere on your body
• Red, itchy rash surrounded by small blisters or scales
• Cuts, sores, or blisters on your feet that are slow to heal and are not as painful as you would expect
• Numbness, tingling, or burning sensations in your hands or feet, including your fingers and toes
• Sharp pain that gets worse at night
• Muscle weakness that makes walking difficult
• Bladder infections and problems with bladder control
• Bloating, stomach pain, constipation, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
• Erectile dysfunction in men and vaginal dryness in women

Kidney Disease

Type 2 diabetes increases your risk of kidney disease, or diabetic nephropathy, a condition in which the blood vessels in your kidneys are damaged to the point that they cannot filter out waste properly. If left untreated, dialysis (a treatment to filter out waste products from the blood) and ultimately a kidney transplant may be needed.

Typically, you won't notice symptoms of kidney disease until it has advanced. However, if you experience any of the following symptoms, tell your doctor:

• Swelling in your ankles and legs
• Leg cramps
• A need to go to the bathroom more often at night
• A reduction in your need for insulin
• Nausea and vomiting
• Weakness and paleness
• Itching

The best way to prevent type 2 diabetes-related kidney problems is to have your urine, blood, and blood pressure monitored regularly and to keep your blood sugar and blood pressure under control.

Eye Problems

People with type 2 diabetes are at risk of several eye conditions, including diabetic retinopathy (which affects the blood vessels in the eye), glaucoma, and cataracts. If left untreated, these conditions can cause vision loss.

Call your doctor if you notice any of these warning signs:

• Blurry vision that lasts for more than two days
• Sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes
• Floaters, black or gray spots, cobwebs, or strings that move when you move your eyes
• A sensation of seeing "flashing lights"
• Pain or pressure in one or both eyes

Hyperglycemia

Hyperglycemia means you have too much sugar in your blood. High blood sugar doesn't always produce symptoms; therefore, it is important to check your blood sugar regularly, as indicated by your doctor. When symptoms of hyperglycemia occur, they may include :

• Frequent urination
• Extreme thirst
• Feeling tired and weak
• Blurry vision
• Feeling hungry even after eating

If you frequently have high blood sugar, tell your doctor. He or she may need to make changes to your medication and suggest diet and lifestyle modifications to help you gain and maintain better blood sugar control.

The key to preventing many of the complications of diabetes is to keep your blood sugar at a healthy level. To do this, eat right, exercise, monitor your blood sugar as recommended by your doctor, and don't smoke.

Report any unusual signs or symptoms to your doctor. Together you can work to prevent these diabetes-related health complications.

For more diabetes news, follow @diabetesfacts on Twitter from the editors of @EverydayHealth.

DECORAH, Iowa - Luther College has been awarded a $100,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a series of academic offerings that will provide students and faculty with greater opportunities for collaborative research in the humanities and a deeper understanding of the liberal arts curriculum.

"Receiving a grant from the Mellon Foundation is a significant honor for Luther College," said President Paula Carlson. "This project will further enhance opportunities for Luther students to develop the close intellectual relationships with faculty central to a residential liberal arts college and gain deeper appreciation for the meaning and value of liberal arts study."

The proposed project focuses on preserving the liberal arts through collaborative research, multidisciplinary dialogue and enhanced writing. Specifically, the grant will fund:

• Competitive summer research grants to support collaborative projects initiated by student/faculty teams
• Development of new interdisciplinary January Term directed-studies courses
• Faculty development workshops exploring models of collaborative research and multi-disciplinary inquiry
• Dissemination of the results from these collaborative research projects to demonstrate the importance of academic rigor and help the larger college community better understand the meaning, value and possibilities of a liberal arts education

Implementation of the grant will begin in 2015.

"Liberal arts is central to the mission of Luther College, and we continue to strive for new ways to help students, faculty and staff better understand and articulate the meaning and value of a liberal arts education," said Terry Sparkes, Luther associate dean and co-director of the Mellon grant. "At its best, the liberal arts brings disciplines together in dialogue, exploring the intersections among the humanities, social sciences and sciences to develop new and deeper insights into the world around us."

According to Jeff Wilkerson, Luther associate dean and Mellon grant co-director, "Part of this work includes an effort to help both students and faculty envision something they might have seen as primarily disciplinary?collaborative research?as part of the fabric of the liberal arts."

Thanks to the Mellon grant, the college will increase summer research opportunities for students in the humanities, help current and incoming students better understand the importance of a liberal arts education and assist students in developing the skills necessary to publish written work.

A national liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,400, Luther offers an academic curriculum that leads to the bachelor of arts degree in 60 majors and preprofessional programs. For more information about Luther visit the college's website: www.luther.edu.

The 17th-annual Frieze Lecture Series, a partnership between the Rock Island Public Library and Augustana College, continues this fall with four lectures by members of Augustana's scholarly community considering themes related to the library's Smithsonian Institution's "Hometown Teams" collaborative.

The lectures consider the different types of "hometowns" with links to Augustana College, from a long-standing connection to a Swedish university to writers whose lives are entwined with local  hometowns.

The Frieze Lectures are free to the public, and begin at 2 p.m. on the last two Tuesdays in October and the first two Tuesdays in November, all in the Rock Island Main Library, with its elegant frieze engraved with the names of some of the world's great poets.Those poets were celebrated in the first lectures held in 1998, with the following series considering women "frozen out of the Frieze."

For 2014, presentations include :

Tuesday, October 21: Dr. Dag Blanck is director of the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana College and lecturer at the Swedish Institute for North American Studies at Uppsala University.The medieval university in Uppsala, Sweden's oldest educational institution, educated many of the people who founded and built up Augustana in the mid-19th century.Dr. Blanck will discuss how our national "hometown" is viewed abroad, and consider various images of the United States in Sweden over the past two centuries.

Tuesday, October 28: Dr. Thomas Tredway, president emeritus of Augustana College, will discuss his book, Conrad Bergendoff's Faith and Work: A Swedish-American Lutheran, 1895-1997.  The book considers the work of one of our hometown's greatest intellects, Conrad Bergendoff, an internationally renowned theologian, ecumenist and church historian. Bergendoff served as Augustana's fifth president from 1935 to 1962, and remained part of this community until his death at the age of 102.Dr. Tredway was president of Augustana from 1975 to 2003. His first book isComing of Age:A History of Augustana College, 1935-1975.Both works were published by the Augustana Historical Society.

Tuesday, November 4: Dr. Meg Gillette, associate professor of English at Augustana, will speak on writers whose lives are entwined with our hometown. Gillette is editor of The Stories We Tell:Modernism in the Tri-Cities, a new collection of works by area writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, published this year by Augustana's East Hall Press. The anthology includes writings by Susan Glaspell, Arthur Davison Ficke, Floyd Dell, Alice French and others, along with essays by Augustana students.

Tuesday, November 11: Dave Wrath, associate athletic director and sports information director, will speak on "Augustana's Hometown Heroes." Though Ken Anderson, the NFL's 1982 Most Valuable Player, is perhaps the best-known sports legend from the Rock Island college, dozens of other athletes have catapulted Augustana to the national stage.  Wrath, an inductee of the College Sports Information Directors of America's Hall of Fame, will share stories of those whose exploits landed our community on sports pages around the country.