Some Diabetes Statistics To Consider
When you study diabetes statistics, they present an interesting picture of the growth of this major disease, especially in the western world. The number of people who have diabetes is enormous. It is significant that the rate of the disease growth is accelerating.
In the United States, for example, nearly eight adults and children of every one hundred have diabetes. Eighteen million people residing in United States states and territories in 2007 were diagnosed with diabetes. An estimated six million people are undiagnosed. Twice as many additional individuals, nearly sixty million, are in a pre-diabetic condition.
If you break these statistics down by age group, it can be even more troubling. For the under-twenty age group, one child of every four hundred to six hundred children has type one diabetes. In the overweight adolescent group, age twelve through nineteen, one in every six teens are pre-diabetic.
Between ages 20 and 60, diabetes hits almost eleven percent of the population. The rate increases up to 23 percent after age sixty. Men get diabetes at a rate slightly higher than women do. Amongst Hispanics and blacks, the rate for diabetes is almost two times that for Asian and Caucasian races.
In the U. S., diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death. It is a contributing cause of death, rather than being a cause in itself. For example, heart disease patient deaths with diabetes are between two and four times as high. The same is true of stroke patients who die. They are two to four times as likely to have had diabetes.
People with diabetes often suffer from hypertension. Many diabetics also take medication to control high blood pressure readings. Blindness as a new case is more likely to have been caused by diabetes. The leading cause for kidney failure is diabetes. Most diabetic patients show some level of nervous system deterioration. Amputations that are not due to trauma are most likely due to nerve and circulatory damage due to diabetes in the amputee.
The diabetes statistics are frightening both in terms of financial costs and health costs. Medical costs for those with diabetes are higher than for those without diabetes. In fact, the cost is about two and a half times as high. The 2007 costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States were $174 billion. In addition, undiagnosed diabetes costs and pre-diabetes costs bring the costs of diabetes in just the one country and one year to a staggering $218 billion.
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