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Level -> Diabetes to go unchecked? (6/24/2007 4:50:36 AM)
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SATURDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- By 2050, an estimated 48 million Americans will have type 2 diabetes as the epidemic continues unabated, according to new federal projections.
But along with the disease will come increases in accompanying health problems, such as blindness and hearing loss, according to several presentations to be made Saturday at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting, in Chicago.
"From 1963 to 2005, we saw periods of sharp increase in the rate of diabetes cases," said Linda S. Geiss, chief of diabetes surveillance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and lead author of the first presentation. "Increases in diabetes cases have been going on for 15 years, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down," she added.
Reviewing data from the National Health Interview Survey, Geiss' team found that from 1990 to 2005, cases of diabetes increased from 26.4 per 1,000 people to 54.5 per 1,000 people, a 4.6 percent increase each year.
Geiss believes the diabetes epidemic is largely being driven by obesity, which is also epidemic in the United States
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20070623/hl_hsn/uspredictsdiabetesepidemictogoonunchecked
As some of you know, I was diagnosed with diabetes in December, so this hits home a bit for me. I can't stress strongly enough the importance of getting your fasting blood sugar checked, and perhaps even a test called an A1c, which tells you what your blood sugar has run on average for a 3 month period.
Even if you aren't diabetic, you can still have insulin resistance, which basically means the cells in your body don't work well with the insulin your body is making, thus the insulin builds up in your blood stream, doing damage to every part of your body.
As the story speaks about, obesity is one of the prime causes of these problems. What causes obesity? Different things, yes, but certainly the eating/overeating of carbohydrates. Sugar is the preminent culprit here, but depending on the individual, even fruit and grains can aggravate blood sugar.
If it is a carbohydrate, it is broken down in the body as sugar.
The rise in obesity in this country, contrary to popular belief, is not due to eating steak or cheese. I would suggest we look at sugar/carbs as the problem. Fat consumption in America has plummeted; and "fat free" this and that is on nearly every shelf in the stores. When did this begin? About the same time that obesity/diabetes cases began rising......[>:]
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