Diabetes has become an epidemic in the United States. One in ten adults has diabetes and another three in ten has ‘pre-diabetes,’ with blood sugars that are chronically elevated but don’t quite meet the criteria for the diagnosis of diabetes. The number of adults with diabetes may double by 2025 and the cost to treat diabetes may exceed the entire Medicare budget for 2010 ($514 billion). These data are from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Using this new information from the CDC, the Institute for Alternative Futures diabetes model estimates that the number of Connecticut residents living with diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) will increase 62% by 2025 from 294,900 to 477,300. The resulting medical and societal cost of diabetes will be $4.7 billion – a 68% increase from 2010. The entire report is rather sobering: http://www.altfutures.org/pubs/diabetes2025/CONNECTICUT_Diabetes2025_Overall_BriefingPaper_2011.pdf
I have started testing all of my overweight patients for diabetes. Delaying or preventing the onset of diabetes can have a dramatic reduction in complications and premature death. The test that I find least helpful is the fasting blood sugar. Far more indicative is evaluating the rise in blood sugar two hours after a meal or measuring the hemoglobin A1c (the average blood sugar for the previous eight weeks). Another clue that diabetes is lurking is elevated triglycerides with low HDL cholesterol (the ‘good’ cholesterol).
There is a wealth of information available on taking steps to lessen one’s risk of diabetes. A good place to start is with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/. Know your own numbers - ask your physician for a copy of your last set of blood tests.
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