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Last Updated: Apr 20, 2011 - 9:38:09 AM |
WEDNESDAY JAN 30, 2008 - More American suffer type 2 diabetes than ever, according to a new study published in the Jan. 28 issue of the
Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study led by Dr. Frank Sloan at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. and colleagues was meant to see whether health outcomes in older people with diabetes in the U.S. improved from period 1994 to 2004.
The researchers analyzed Medicare claims and other data and compared them to data for two control groups of people without diabetes.
They found between 1994-95 and 2003-04, the annual incidence of diabetes (new cases) jumped 23 percent while the prevalence (people living with the disease) increased by 62 percent.
According to the researchers, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing not only in the aging population, but all in young people as well. The disease poses many serious complications including blindness, kidney disease, eye disease and even amputations among others.
The authors of the study found the complication rates among people with diabetes were the same or increased with an exception that there was a big increase in kidney disease.
It was also found that most people with diabetes had at least one complication within six years of diagnosis and nearly half had congestive heart failure.
The message is that the current treatments could in no way lower the ever increasing prevalence and incidence of diabetes in this country. Scientists said measures other than treatments are needed to prevent the disease from occurring.
In the United States, an estimated 19 to 20 million people live with type 2 diabetes and one third do not know they have the disease. More people may live in a condition known as pre-diabetes.
Diabetes is largely a disease of affluence, a foodconsumer.org scientist suggested. Following a healthy diet and lifestyle is believed to lower the risk of developing the disease.
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