About half of American adults have either diabetes or prediabetes, a new study says. The percentage of people with undiagnosed diabetes was particularly high among Asian Americans – about 50 percent of Asian Americans with diabetes were not aware they had the condition, according to the study. Prediabetes is defined as having elevated blood sugar levels that aren’t high enough to be called full-blown diabetes, the researchers explained.
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As sales at McDonald’s decrease and more people buy (and hopefully) use fitness trackers, you would think that the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in the United States would fall accordingly, even by only a little.
The survey also showed that diagnosed diabetes rates were lower among caucasians than Hispanics, blacks and Asian-Americans. Though data from recent years suggests that the increasing prevalence of diabetes may be leveling off.
However, the true cost of diabetes is likely far higher than $245billion, as that only takes into account diagnosed cases.
Diabetes was most common among older adults – about one in three adults age 65 and over had the condition in 2011-2012, compared to 17 percent of adults ages 45 to 64, and 5 percent of adults younger than 45.
“Diabetes can be treated, but only if it is diagnosed”, said lead researcher Catherine Cowie, program director of the division of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases at the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
According to Menke, it’s essential that those who are considered high risk be educated on the possible complications or effects of diabetes in their health.
Using newly available 2011-2012 data from the CDCs National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers were able to quantify diabetes prevalence for Asian Americans for the first time and found that they have the highest proportion of diabetes that was undiagnosed among all ethnic and racial subgroups studied, at 51 percent.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity, poor eating habits and lack of exercise.
Most of the people with diabetes tracked by researchers had Type 2 of the disease, the type that generally stems from obesity and inactive lifestyle.
The researchers noted that the American Diabetes Association recommends that people have two tests to confirm a diagnosis of diabetes.
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Now it appears that the stabilization in the rate of obesity in the United States that has occurred since 2000 may be associated with a leveling off in the prevalence of diabetes, beginning in about 2010, he said.
