Diabetes to triple in U.S. by 2050
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As many as one in three Americans could develop diabetes by 2050 unless a significant dent is made in the obesity epidemic, according to the latest CDC projections.
As it stands, one in 10 Americans has diabetes, but this could double – or even triple – by 2050 if current trends continue. These trends include the aging of the population, increasing rates of obesity, the fact that people with diabetes are living longer, and increases in the number of people belonging to minority groups at high risk for diabetes.
“The numbers are alarming,” says Ann Albright, PhD, RD, director of the CDC’s division of diabetes translation.
“We really need to focus more attention and effort on prevention.”
Part of the increase in diabetes prevalence is positive in nature, she says. “People are living longer, and we are identifying diabetes earlier in course of the diseases and improving outcomes for those that have the disease.”
“The major negative is the new cases of type 2 diabetes, and that is why prevention is so important,” she says.
“If we don’t work on prevention, these gains will be undermined.” Obesity is a major risk for type 2 diabetes, and it plays an important role in the increasing rates of type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes was the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States in 2007, and is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults under age 75, as well as kidney failure, and leg and foot amputations not caused by injury.
Diabetes cost the United States more than $174 billion per year in 2007, is expected to take an increasingly large financial toll in subsequent years.
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Thanks for posting. I confess: I am a Diabetic. Type I – juvenile onset – diabetics are usually the skinnies. Type II – adult onset – tend to have a little more cushioning. I’m Type II – not skinny but not even pleasantly plump either.
Runs in family but nobody overweight particularly. I thought I had beat it when I turned 50. Six months later . . .
Watch Mom, Dad and kids waddle out of McDonald’s with their super-sized meals. Their guts are so big they shake and their legs are so fat they rub raw spots. These are the same folks who are critical of Michelle Obama’s Childhood Obesity program.
I know a lot of people with diabetes. All of them overweight, but a few not so much. A couple inherited, but most just let themselves go. Sad.