Diabetes: America's Newest Health Epidemic (infographic)
As one of today’s fastest growing health challenges, diabetes has become increasingly prevalent in the United States. In fact, the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes has risen from 10.4 million people in 1998 to 21 million people today, according to the CDC, and the number is expected to rise even more in the near future. The American Diabetes Association projects that one in three Americans living today will eventually develop diabetes, and that by 2050, the number of diagnoses will increase by 165 percent. As we recognize American Diabetes Month during November, let’s take a closer look at why more people are developing the disease and what our UnityPoint Clinic providers say we can do to reverse this trend. The Rise of Diabetes in the United States The number of people living with diabetes isn’t just up in the United States, but all over the world. While diabetes is now a problem that affects people everywhere, the CDC estimates that as many as 29.1 million Americans have diabetes (21 million who are diagnosed and another 8.1 million who are undiagnosed). This means that over 9 percent of the United States population has some form of diabetes. The rise in diabetes incidence across the United States is largely linked to the following three factors: More Americans are becoming overweight or obese and increasingly physically inactive – both known risk factors for diabetes. A person’s chances of developing diabetes increases with age. Now that the baby-boomer population is aging, more people from this generation are being diagnosed with the disease. Type 2 diabetes is especially common among African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and certain Asian populations, which are all growing populations in the United States. Diabetes Complications Type 2 D Continue reading >>
Diabetes Is 'epidemic' With 400 Million Sufferers Worldwide: Number With Condition Set To Soar By 55% Within 20 Years Unless Humans Change Way They Eat And Exercise
Diabetes has become a global epidemic, affecting one in 12 adults, scientists say. And the number of sufferers is set to soar by 55 per cent in the next two decades unless the human population drastically changes the way it eats and exercises. The study by researchers at the University of East Anglia estimates that 382million people had diabetes in 2013. At current rates, that figure is expected to reach 592million by 2035. Around 10 per cent of sufferers have type 1 diabetes – an auto-immune disorder that is usually present from childhood. But the other 90 per cent have type 2 diabetes – an illness driven by a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. The chronic illness is a particular problem in fast-developing countries. In China and India, almost 10 per cent of adults have diabetes, compared with the global average of 8.3 per cent, reveals the study published in the journal Pharmaco Economics. In Britain, around 3.2million people have diabetes. Lead researcher Till Seuring said: ‘Diabetes has become an epidemic. ‘The rising prevalence of diabetes in these countries has been fuelled by rapid urbanization, changing eating habits, and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. ‘Diabetes affects 382 million people worldwide, and that number is expected to grow to 592 million by 2035. ‘It is a chronic disease that has spread widely in recent decades - not only in high-income countries, but also in many populous low and middle-income countries such as India and China.’ He added: ‘We would hope that the findings further increase the policy attention being paid to diabetes prevention and management in rich countries and it should in particular make health and economic policymakers in developing countries aware of the economic damage that diabetes can do.’ The study, pub Continue reading >>
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Diabetes Mystery: Why Are Type 1 Cases Surging?
When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin. For reasons that are completely mysterious, however, the incidence of type 1 diabetes has been increasing throughout the globe at rates that range from 3 to 5 percent a year. Although the second trend is less well publicized, it is still deeply troubling, because this form of the illness has the potential to disable or kill people so much earlier in their lives. No one knows exactly why type 1 diabetes is rising. Solving that mystery—and, if possible, reducing or reversing the trend—has become an urgent problem for public health researchers everywhere. So far they feel they have only one solid clue. “Increases such as the ones that have been reported cannot be explained by a change in genes in such a short period,” says Giuseppina Imperatore, who leads a team of epidemiologists in the Division of Diabetes Translation at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “So environmental factors are probably major players in this increase.” A Challenge of Counting Type 1 and type 2 diabetes share the same underlying defect—an inability to deploy insulin in a manner that keeps blood sugar from rising too high—but they arise out of almos Continue reading >>
Diabetes: The Epidemic
On Barbara Young's office table is a graph. A bar chart, actually: four columns of green, purple, red and bright blue showing the progression, in England, of rates of coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes over the past five years. The first two are flatlining or falling. Cancer, in red, is rising, but slowly. Trace a line between the blue bars from 2005 to 2010, and it soars off the chart. "Diabetes," says Young flatly, "is becoming a crisis. The crisis. It's big, it's scary, it's growing and it's very, very expensive. It's clearly an epidemic, and it could bring the health service to its knees. Something really does need to happen." Baroness Young is, admittedly, the chief executive of Diabetes UK, Britain's main diabetes charity and campaigning group. It's her job to say such things. But the figures are behind her all the way: diabetes is fast becoming the 21st century's major public-health concern. The condition is now nearly four times as common as all forms of cancer combined, and causes more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined. Some 2.8m people in the UK have been diagnosed with it; an estimated 850,000 more probably have type 2 diabetes but don't yet know. Another 7m are classified as high-risk of developing type 2; between 40% and 50% of them will go on to develop it. By the year 2025, more than 5m people in this country will have diabetes. The implications for the NHS, obviously, don't bear thinking about. Diabetes already costs the service around £1m an hour, roughly 10% of its entire budget. That's not just because the condition generally has to be managed with medication or insulin, but because by the time they are diagnosed, around half the people with type 2 – by far the most common and fastest growing form – have developed a Continue reading >>
Type 2 Diabetes Becoming A Childhood Epidemic | Miami Herald
Before, the only people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes were older adults. However, times have changed. In the past 20 years, new cases of Type 2 diabetes in childhood have increased from less than 5 percent to more than 20 percent of all new diagnoses. What is causing this disturbing trend? What is Type 2 diabetes, and how can we protect our children from this disease? Type 2 diabetes is the form of diabetes in which the body is resistant to the action of insulin. Insulin levels rise, and when the body can no longer make enough insulin, blood sugars rise. This is different from Type 1 diabetes, in which the body stops making insulin. Although Type 1 diabetes is still more common among children, Type 2 diabetes — previously called adult onset or non-insulin-dependent diabetes — is becoming more common among adolescents and even younger children. Type 2 diabetes occurs in children as young as 6, and is increasing at an alarming rate, primarily due to the epidemic of obesity in children and adolescents. Type 2 diabetes is also more common among some ethnic groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans. Another risk factor is a family history of Type 2 diabetes or if diabetes occurred in the mother during pregnancy. Never miss a local story. Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access. SUBSCRIBE NOW There are a number signs parents should watch for if they suspect their child has diabetes, including: ▪ Frequent urination or new bed-wetting. ▪ Increased thirst and appetite. ▪ Decreased energy. ▪ Unexplained weight loss. ▪ Genital yeast infection. Another sign that your child is at risk for Type 2 diabetes is the appearance of darker and thicker skin on your child’s neck or armpits, which may make skin app Continue reading >>
Prediabetes: The Epidemic That Never Was, And Shouldn't Be
(Nam Y. Huh / AP) This summer, your TV will begin alerting you to the dangers of high blood sugar. Your phone will buzz with automatic messages assessing the glycemic index of your breakfast bagel. And your Facebook feed will remind you to take the stairs, not the elevator. This is all the result of a recent initiative intended to increase awareness of a condition known as prediabetes. Marked by abnormal but not yet pathological blood sugar levels, prediabetes acts as a risk marker for Type 2 diabetes, a metabolic disease in which the body fails to properly process sugar. The idea is akin to cancer prevention: catch the tumor early (prediabetes) and avoid metastasis (diabetes). According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers, prediabetes is becoming a national emergency. In 2014, 86 million adult Americans were said to be prediabetic. This means that 1 in 3 American adults have prediabetes — a figure higher than the number of Americans who currently hold a bachelor's degree. Yet those claims may be scaring more people than they are helping. The United States has the lowest prediabetes cut-off points of high-income countries around the world, meaning that prediabetes gets diagnosed earlier and more frequently, leading to new patients and higher costs. In 2003, and then again in 2010, the American Diabetes Association shifted the prediabetes diagnostic threshold down, from 110 to 100 milligrams per deciliter for the finger-stick glucose test, and from 6.0 to 5.7 percent for the average blood sugar level (the HbA1C test). Other countries have pushed back. So has the World Health Organization, which has cautioned since 2006 that lower thresholds would needlessly double the prevalence of prediabetes and inadvertently implicate patients at mi Continue reading >>
Diabetes And Its Drivers: The Largest Epidemic In Human History?
Abstract The “Diabesity” epidemic (obesity and type 2 diabetes) is likely to be the biggest epidemic in human history. Diabetes has been seriously underrated as a global public health issue and the world can no longer ignore “the rise and rise” of type 2 diabetes. Currently, most of the national and global diabetes estimates come from the IDF Atlas. These estimates have significant limitations from a public health perspective. It is apparent that the IDF have consistently underestimated the global burden. More reliable estimates of the future burden of diabetes are urgently needed. To prevent type 2 diabetes, a better understanding of the drivers of the epidemic is needed. While for years, there has been comprehensive attention to the “traditional” risk factors for type 2 diabetes i.e., genes, lifestyle and behavioral change, the spotlight is turning to the impact of the intra-uterine environment and epigenetics on future risk in adult life. It highlights the urgency for discovering novel approaches to prevention focusing on maternal and child health. Diabetes risk through epigenetic changes can be transmitted inter-generationally thus creating a vicious cycle that will continue to feed the diabetes epidemic. History provides important lessons and there are lessons to learn from major catastrophic events such as the Dutch Winter Hunger and Chinese famines. The Chinese famine may have been the trigger for what may be viewed as a diabetes “avalanche” many decades later. The drivers of the epidemic are indeed genes and environment but they are now joined by deleterious early life events. Looking to the future there is the potential scenario of future new “hot spots” for type 2 diabetes in regions e.g., the Horn of Africa, now experiencing droughts and f Continue reading >>
Increased Consumption Of Refined Carbohydrates And The Epidemic Of Type 2 Diabetes In The United States: An Ecologic Assessment1,2,3
Abstract Background: Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic that is affecting an ever-increasing proportion of the US population. Although consumption of refined carbohydrates has increased and is thought to be related to the increased risk of type 2 diabetes, the ecologic effect of changes in the quality of carbohydrates in the food supply on the risk of type 2 diabetes remains to be quantified. Objective: The objective was to examine the correlation between consumption of refined carbohydrates and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the United States. Methods: In this ecologic correlation study, the per capita nutrient consumption in the United States between 1909 and 1997 obtained from the US Department of Agriculture was compared with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results: In a univariate analysis, a significant correlation with diabetes prevalence was observed for dietary fat (r = 0.84, P < 0.001), carbohydrate (r = 0.55, P < 0.001), protein (r = 0.71, P < 0.001), fiber (r = 0.16, P = 0.03), corn syrup (r = 0.83, P < 0.001), and total energy (r = 0.75, P < 0.001) intakes. In a multivariate nutrient-density model, in which total energy intake was accounted for, corn syrup was positively associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (β = 0.0132, P = 0.038). Fiber (β = −13.86, P < 0.01) was negatively associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes. In contrast, protein (P = 0.084) and fat (P = 0.79) were not associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes when total energy was controlled for. Conclusions: Increasing intakes of refined carbohydrate (corn syrup) concomitant with decreasing intakes of fiber paralleled the upward trend in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes observed in the United States Continue reading >>
- Excessive fruit consumption during the second trimester is associated with increased likelihood of gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective study
- Incidence of End-Stage Renal Disease Attributed to Diabetes Among Persons with Diagnosed Diabetes United States and Puerto Rico, 20002014
- Disparities in Diabetes Deaths Among Children and Adolescents United States, 20002014
Why Diabetes Is Becoming Epidemic
Some of the most damaging groups of substances we are exposed to on a daily basis are starches and refined sugars, such as: Sucrose Fructose Glucose Dextrose And corn syrup Our metabolism was just not designed to handle the tremendous amount of nutrient-free calories (i.e., sugar, starches, and to some degree fat) that the typical American diet has in it. The majority of those calories come from refined sugar (sweets, soft drinks, etc.) and starches (bread and pasta). Excess sugar and starch cause multiple assaults to your system. First, as we discussed, high blood sugar causes excess insulin release. Of the two hormones that control the amount of sugar in your blood stream—insulin and glucagon, insulin causes sugar to be taken into the cells, while glucagon causes it to be released. By eating excess carbohydrates, you put your blood sugar control system onto a dangerous roller coaster ride. Up, down, up, down—after repeated bouts of this, your system will crash. The result is Type II diabetes, which is becoming more and more prevalent. There’s more. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have arthritis. In fact, more than half of the U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes also have arthritis. That puts them in a double bind, as the pain in their joints keeps them from getting the exercise they need to keep both diseases at bay. Diabetics are unable to take up sugar efficiently, because their cells no longer respond to insulin. A nasty side effect of this process is that your body begins producing way too much insulin to try and overcome the unresponsiveness of your cells. So now you have high insulin and high blood sugar, which causes all kinds of damage to your arteries. This includes higher cholesterol in your blood, more useless molecules being made by stick Continue reading >>
Is Diabetes Becoming The Biggest Epidemic Of The Twenty-first Century?
Diabetes is a major public health problem that is approaching epidemic proportions globally. Worldwide, the prevalence of chronic, noncommunicable diseases is increasing at an alarming rate. About 18 million people die every year from cardiovascular disease, for which diabetes and hypertension are major predisposing factors. Today, more than 1.7 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 312 million of them are obese. In addition, at least 155 million children worldwide are overweight or obese. A diabetes epidemic is underway. According to an estimate of International Diabetes Federation comparative prevalence of Diabetes during 2007 is 8.0 % and likely to increase to 7.3% by 2025. Number of people with diabetes is 246 million (with 46% of all those affected in the 40–59 age group) and likely to increase to 380 m by 2025. The comparative prevalence of IGT is 7.5% in 2007 and likely to go up to 6.0 by 2025. The number of people with IGT is 308 million in 2007 and likely to be 418 m by 2025. (1) Almost 80% of the total adult diabetics are in developing countries. The regions with the highest rates are the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, where 9.2 % of the adult population is affected, and North America (8.4%). The highest numbers, however, are found in the Western Pacific, where some 67 million people have Diabetes, followed by Europe with 53 million. India leads the global top ten in terms of the highest number of people with diabetes with a current figure of 40.9 million, followed by China with 39.8 million. Behind them come USA; Russia; Germany; Japan; Pakistan; Brazil; Mexico and Egypt. Two major concerns are that much of this increase in Diabetes will occur in developing countries and that there is a growing incidence of Type 2 Diabetes at a younger age in Continue reading >>
Diabetes Has Become An Epidemic In The United States
In honor of November being national diabetes month, I thought I would share a little information on diabetes and help bring awareness to the disease. Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your blood sugar, or blood glucose, is too high. Glucose is a type of sugar that you get from the food you consume. Your body uses glucose as its main source of energy. The glucose that travels through your bloodstream to your cells is called blood glucose or blood sugar. The hormone insulin, which is made in the pancreas, moves glucose from your blood into the cells for energy and storage. Issues arise when the body does not make enough, make any insulin, or does not properly use the insulin, ultimately causing glucose to stay in the blood and not reach the cells. There are several types of diabetes, the most common being type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Individuals with type 1 diabetes are unable to make insulin. In a previous post (here) I discussed that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. With type 1 diabetes the immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed during childhood or adolescents. Individuals with type 2 diabetes do not make or use insulin properly. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can occur at any age but is more common among middle aged and older individuals. There is an alarming increase in the amount of children being diagnosed due to the increase in childhood obesity. Let’s focus on type 2 diabetes. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more than 29 million US adults have diabetes. Approximately 25% of those individuals do not know they have diabetes1. More than one third of Adults in the United States have pre-diabetes and approxim Continue reading >>
Understanding The American Obesity Epidemic
Obesity — everyone knows it’s bad and that it’s everywhere. Nearly 78 million adults and 13 million children in the United States deal with the health and emotional effects of obesity every day. The solution to their problem sounds deceptively simple — take in fewer calories a day, while cranking up the calorie-burning process with regular exercise. But it’s not just a matter of obese people deciding they’re going to eat less, says Donna H. Ryan, M.D., co-chair of the committee that wrote the recent obesity guidelines and professor emerita at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Not getting the cues The body’s regulation of food consumption is a highly complex biologic system, designed to promote food intake and survival, she explains. Body organs like the stomach, intestines, fat and pancreas send signals to the brain that trigger hunger and make you want to eat. While you’re eating, signals tell the brain that you’re full and to stop eating. “This is called the homeostatic system,” Ryan said, and is why we get hungry at regular intervals during the day but don't get hungry at night when we’re sleeping.” She adds that another system -- the reward system -- promotes food intake. When you see or smell appealing food, it can trigger the desire to eat whether or not you’re hungry. “Think of your experience in a restaurant after a meal when the dessert cart comes by,” Ryan said. Recent studies show that obese individuals have less ability to resist food cues. Stress, mildly low blood sugar and other factors also play a role. Adding to the challenge, trying to eat less magnifies the body’s appetite regulating signals and when you start to lose weight, appetite is increased and satiety is decrea Continue reading >>
Diabetes Has Stealthily Become An Epidemic
William Herman has spent decades researching diabetes, treating patients grappling with complications and trying to educate people on prevention. During those same years, he also has seen the prevalence of the disease grow virtually unabated. “It really is an epidemic, both in the U.S. and globally,” said Herman, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Diabetes Translational Research and a consultant to the World Health Organization. The statistics are staggering. More than 29 million Americans, or 9.3 percent of the U.S. population, have diabetes — but a quarter of them don’t yet realize it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 86 million Americans have pre-diabetes, which is marked by higher-than-normal blood-sugar levels and puts them at an elevated risk of developing diabetes. The WHO estimates that nearly 350 million people worldwide have the condition. Year after year, diabetes exacts a massive human and economic toll. Those who have it are at a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and blindness, and of losing toes, feet and legs to amputation. “The costs of diabetes are enormous, and they are growing,” Herman said. “People with diabetes account for a substantial portion of the total cost of health care in the United States.” Medical expenses tend to be twice as high, on average, for people with diabetes than for those without the disease. The American Diabetes Association estimates that treating patients with the disease accounts for more than $1 of every $5 spent on health care in the United States. “It has affected all segments of the population,” said Edward Gregg, chief of the epidemiology and statistics branch of the CDC’s diabetes division. “But it hasn’t affected Continue reading >>
The Global Diabetes Epidemic
Twelve years ago, my husband and I packed up all of our belongings and moved to Trivandrum — a steamy, tropical town at the southern tip of India in Kerala. At the time, I was a medical student interested in studying stroke. For the next six months I dressed in a sari and walked to work on jungle roads. At the hospital, I immediately began seeing a steady stream of young patients affected by strokes, many of whom were so severely disabled that they were unable to work. I initially suspected the cause was tuberculosis or dengue fever — after all, this was the developing world, where infections have long been primary culprits for disease. But I soon learned that my hunch was wrong. One of my first patients was a woman in her mid-30s who came in with a headache, vomiting and an unsteady gait. Her scan showed a brainstem stroke. Her blood sugars were very high. The underlying cause of her stroke was most likely untreated Type 2 diabetes. Here I was, halfway around the globe, in a vastly foreign culture, but I was looking at a disease — and the lifestyle that fostered it — that was startlingly familiar. Today, I am an endocrinologist, and diabetes has become a full-blown epidemic in India, China, and throughout many emerging economies. In the United States, diabetes tends to be a disease that, while certainly not benign, is eminently manageable. Just this month, federal researchers reported that health risks for the approximately 25 million Americans with diabetes had fallen sharply over the last two decades. Elsewhere on the globe, however, diabetes plays out in a dramatically different fashion. Patients often lack access to care and can’t get insulin, blood pressure pills and other medicines that diminish the risk of complications. As more and more people develop Continue reading >>
How Diabetes Became A Global Epidemic
The rate of type two diabetes continues to rise around the world, and many experts agree that it has become a global health crisis. Worldwide, the rate of diabetes increased by about 8 percent in men and nearly 10 percent in women from 1980 to 2008, according to a 2011 study published in the journal Lancet. The study, which tracked diabetes trends in 200 countries over the past three decades, found that nearly one in ten adults worldwide have some form of diabetes. The primary causes of this preventable disease are related to a poor diet and lack of exercise. Educating the world population on the importance of a healthy lifestyle is the best way to avert this public health crisis. Preventative care is the easiest way to keep individuals, families and communities healthy and active. Global Rise in Diabetes Diabetes is the condition in which the body does not properly process food for use as energy, and it manifests in the body in two ways, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease that begins in childhood and requires an individual to take insulin. Type two diabetes accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all diagnosed diabetes cases, according to the CDC and is controlled by insulin, pills and in some cases by weight loss and exercise. Type two diabetes usually comes on after the age of 25. According to the results of the Lancet study the disease is most common in the islands of the South Pacific, Saudi Arabia, China, and India. Among high-income countries the rise in the US is the steepest. The study found that between 1980 and 2008, the number of diabetics more than doubled from 153 million to 347 million. About 30 percent of that increase came from a rise in disease across all age groups. About 30 percent cam Continue reading >>
