- Almost 26 million Americans have diabetes, including as many as seven million individuals who have diabetes and don’t know it.
- Diabetes kills more people than AIDS and breast cancer combined.
- In 2007, diabetes claimed more than 284,000 American lives.
- Diabetes costs the American people $218 billion each year, factoring together the total costs of diagnosed cases, undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes, and gestational diabetes.
- Diabetes impacts all social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 180 million people world wide have diabetes. This number is likely to more than double by 2030.
- Diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to create or effectively use its own insulin, which is produced by islet cells found in the pancreas.
- Insulin helps regulate blood sugar (glucose) levels – providing energy to body cells and tissues.
- Without insulin, the body’s cells would be starved, causing dehydration and destruction of body tissue.
- Injecting insulin is not a cure for diabetes. It is a critical life-saving component of a daily treatment program.
- Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death by disease among adults and reduces life expectancy by one-third.
- Approximately 4,110 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each day.
- Almost three million Americans are hospitalized each year due to diabetes.
- Diabetes is the leading cause of new blindness in adults ages 20-74.
- Sixty-five percent of deaths among people with diabetes are due to heart disease and stroke.
- Persons with diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than people without diabetes.
- More than 60 percent of all nontraumatic amputations occur among people with diabetes.
- Nearly 44 percent of all kidney failure is caused by diabetes. Diabetic patients are 17 times more prone to kidney disease than people who do not have the disease.
- Diabetes is also the leading cause of end stage renal disease.
- Women with diabetes face high-risk pregnancies, which can result in babies born with many health problems.
Source: Centers for Disease Control; National Institutes of Health; American Diabetes Association