Diabetes is a prevalent chronic disease in the United States that carries significant rates of morbidity and mortality. The disease is associated with a number of serious complications, including kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and blindness. Diabetes not only impacts a person’s quality of life but can also shorten their lifespan; it has been ranked as the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.
A Look at the Numbers
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, diabetes affects 28.7 million people in the United States. It’s estimated that another 8.5 million have diabetes but don’t know it, meaning that 1 in 5 diabetics haven’t yet been diagnosed. This brings the true number of diabetics to 37.3 million, or about 1 in 10 Americans, with the majority (90 to 95 percent) having Type 2 diabetes. This is what we'll focus on here.Diabetes is diagnosed through either a fasting blood glucose level of 126 or greater, a HgB A1C level of 6.5 percent or greater, or a random glucose level (non-fasting) or glucose tolerance test of 200 or greater.
