The Reality Of Diabetes

    * Over 18.2 million Americans have diabetes, and about one-third of them don’t know that they have the disease.
    * By 2050, an estimated 39 million U.S. residents are expected to have diagnosed diabetes.
    * American Indians, African Americans, and Hispanics are about 2 times more likely than whites to have diabetes.
    * Type 2 diabetes, once believed to affect only adults, is being diagnosed increasingly among young people.
    * One in three U.S. children born in 2000 could develop diabetes during their lifetime.
    * Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death. Over 200,000 people die each year of diabetes-related complications.
    * Diabetes is a leading cause of kidney failure, new blindness in adults, and leg and foot amputations unrelated to injury.
    * Diabetes is a major cause of heart disease and stroke, which are responsible for about 65% of deaths among people with diabetes.
    * About 18,000 women with preexisting diabetes deliver babies each year, and 135,000 expectant mothers learn they have gestational diabetes. Diabetes increases a woman’s risk for pregnancy complications and increases her child’s risk for obesity and diabetes later in life.
    * Diabetes is most common among people aged 65–74 and least common among people under age 45, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex.
    * An estimated 41 million Americans have a high risk for developing type 2 diabetes—a condition known as pre-diabetes. People with pre-diabetes have impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), or both.