Students from ASU and community colleges across the Valley were among the 80 people who volunteered Saturday at the first Diabetes de la Cabeza a los Pies conference.

The conference, held at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, promoted diabetes awareness for the Latino community through a series of speakers who gave presentations about the prevention and control of diabetes, all in Spanish.

About 110 people attended the conference.

Dr. Armando Rodriguez-Asbun, one of the speakers at the conference, said it is important to provide diabetes education to Latinos because their genetic makeup makes them more likely to develop the disease.

“Unfortunately, due to lack of understanding of this problem, patients don’t get treatment on time,” he said. “They don’t take preventative measures to even stop this problem from happening, and therefore we end up seeing complications that are preventable.”

Rodriguez-Asbun said he was glad the Phoenix chapter of the American Diabetes Association created the program to inform local Latinos about diabetes risks.

“I’m happy that there are opportunities like this conference to promote educational opportunities to patients who otherwise wouldn’t have any access to this information and especially in a language they can understand,” he said.

Biochemistry freshman Zunaid Kabir, one of the volunteers at the conference, said he wanted to help because diabetes runs in his family.

“I have like six or seven people in my family who have diabetes, so I’ll probably be the next one, but hopefully not,” Kabir said.

Kabir said he went around the Tempe campus before the event putting up fliers to help get more volunteers as well as promote the conference.

“I think it’s important to inform people about diabetes so they can prepare themselves and actually prevent it,” he said.

Concilio Latino de Salud volunteer coordinator David Aguirre said he was pleased with the number of people who attended the event.

“We had a good turnout in there and with it being the first year,” he said. “I think we did a good job.”

Aguirre said he hopes next year’s conference will reach even more people.

“We’ll make it grow because we need these kind of events in our community to promote healthy lifestyles and maybe even put a stop to diabetes because it’s killing our people,” he said.

Reach the reporter at snrodri2@asu.edu.