William Herman has spent decades researching diabetes, treating patients grappling with complications from it and trying to educate people on how to prevent it. During those same years, he also has seen the prevalence of the disease grow virtually unabated.
“It really is an epidemic, both in the U.S. and globally,” said Herman, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Diabetes Translational Research and a consultant to the World Health Organization.
The statistics are staggering: More than 29 million Americans, or 9.3 percent of the U.S. population, have diabetes – but a quarter of them don’t yet realize it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 86 million Americans have prediabetes, which is marked by higher-than-normal blood-sugar levels and puts them at an elevated risk of developing diabetes. The WHO estimates that nearly 350 million people worldwide have the condition.
Year after year, diabetes exacts a massive human and economic toll. Those who have it are at a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and blindness as well as of losing toes, feet and legs to amputation. The risk of death for adults with diabetes is 50 percent higher than it is for adults without the disease, according to the CDC.
Medical expenses tend to be twice as high, on average, for people with diabetes than for those without the disease. The American Diabetes Association estimates that treating patients with the disease accounts for more than $1 of every $5 spent on health care in the United States.
The risks generally increase with age, but a growing number of people younger than 20 are diagnosed with diabetes. Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans all have higher rates of the disease than whites, and those who live in areas of extreme poverty have been hit particularly hard.
The CDC found that diabetes diagnoses increased between 1995 and 2010 in every U.S. state, including by 50 percent or more in 42 states. During that period, the number of cases in the country more than doubled.
Despite the immense number of people who have diabetes, it has not triggered national alarm. Other illnesses, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, often garner more attention. One reason is that people with diabetes sometimes go years before experiencing any decline in their quality of life. When complications do surface, they often do so gradually and manifest in various ways. People don’t always recognize diabetes as the source of severe health problems.
In fact, the CDC says diabetes is underreported as a cause of death, even though it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. For instance, the numbers of people listed as dying each year from heart disease and stroke are larger than they are for diabetes, but many of those people had diabetes as an underlying condition.
