Sugar, Heart and Life: A Guide to Living with Diabetes is a rich, entertaining web-based learning environment in English and Spanish for persons with type 2 Diabetes and those that support and care for them.

Developed by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the web-site offers two primary learning vehicles: an interactive telenovela and a games and activities section called the Info-Market. A web-page for Health Professionals offers additional tools and viewing options suitable for working with individuals or groups.

Click here to learn about how this program was developed. (technical_program_en.pdf, 1.6 MB)

Meet the Gonzalez Family Victoria Gonzalez is a working mother, devoted to her family and to her husband Luis. Luis and his mother both have diabetes, yet stubbornly cling to habits and traditions that sometimes undermine their efforts to stay healthy. They have a daughter, Lucia in her early twenties and a son, Lucho, just starting high-school.

"Sugar, Heart and Life" takes place in the year following Victoria's diabetes diagnosis, covering topics such as eating at home, getting active, managing medications, eating out and staying active over a long period of time.

Viewers can choose to see five interactive episodes from Victoria's point of view, or Luis'. In each character's individual scene, they acquire new information about managing their diabetes and face a dilemma: do they change their habits to better manage their diabetes, or not?

Users are able to explore two possible outcomes for each dilemma, representing the influence that Luis and Victoria's choices can have on their health and that of their family.

After the opening scene at the clinic, there are five interactive episodes: New Friends, New Recipes At the Park with the Ortiz Managing Our Medication Dinner at La Hacienda Field Day at the Bazaar

Special features in the section for Health Professionals allow for easy navigation through the story by Episode Topic, and provide for five different Play Modes or viewing options..

Once users have made choices for Luis or Victoria in all five episodes, a final scene will show how the family could be doing five years into the future based on those choices. There are three possibilities depending on whether the user makes mostly healthy choices, some healthy choices, or mostly unhealthy choices.

The program then allows users to revisit the choices they made, in order to change what happens to the family in the future.

In the virtual community of Sugar, Heart and Life, the Info-Market supports your learning with games, printouts, and informational activities on critical issues related to diabetes management.

Users can access the Info-Market while viewing the story by using the "I" icon available at the bottom, left-hand corner of the screen, then return to their place by clicking on the family portrait.

This interactive program was developed by Baylor College of Medicine to bring to the Hispanic community an accessible resource that provided critical information on diabetes management in a format that was simple to use, entertaining and family friendly.

Your comments will help us improve this program. Please take a moment to let us know what you think by clicking "Give Us Your Opinion" or "Contact Us" on the left hand menu.

Thanks for visiting,
The Sugar, Heart and Life Team
At Baylor College of Medicine