yesterday afternoon.

The Bermuda Diabetes Epidemiology Project was presented at Government House by Advertising Associates Managing Director Mr. John White and the project's Director, Dr. Meng Tan.

Mr. White told the audience that information suggested as many as one in five Bermudians could have diabetes and many did not know it.

Dr. Tan stressed that diabetes can cause blindness, kidney failure, gangrene, heart disease and death.

And while Asian flu and measles created fast epidemics and AIDS created a slower epidemic, said Mr. White, diabetes was a silent epidemic which was "sneaky and deadly''.

Mr. White said $332,000 was needed to allow testing of the individuals and the project's ultimate objective was to create statistics which could be projected into the next decade.

The study would test between 2,000 and 3,000 randomly selected Bermudians with the primary purpose of: finding out how big a problem diabetes is on the Island; identifying out how many people have the disease who do not know they do; identifying how many people are at a greater risk of developing the disease; and identifying how many have risk factors for heart disease.

The study would be conducted by registered nurses and King Edward VII Memorial Hospital laboratory staff and could take up to a year.

Mr. White appealed to the audience to support the project which would formulate accurate statistics and a disease control, epidemic management policy for years to come.

He asked audience members to tie blindfolds over their eyes and told them, "This gives you an idea what it is like to suddenly be told you're never going to see the light of day.'' In 1990 there were 28 blind Bermudians at Beacon House of which 25 had diabetes mellitus .

Diabetes is caused when there is no insulin produced in the body or the insulin being produced does not work to allow sugar to enter the body's cells for immediate use.

Promotion and advertising for the project will begin today and there will be a tag day this weekend.

The Project Co-ordinator is Mrs. Diane Vasic and the Co-Director is Mrs.

Deborah Jones.