Diabetes Forecast Gets Scarier

Diabetes Forecast Gets Scarier

CDC Ups Diabetes Prediction to 48.3 Million Cases by 2050
By Daniel DeNoon
September 11, 2006

Sept. 11, 2006 -- Greatly increasing a prediction made just three years ago, the CDC now predicts 48.3 million Americans will have diabetes by 2050.

That's triple the number of people living with diabetes today -- and 9.3 million more than the CDC forecast in 2003.

The new figures come from K.M. Venkat Narayan, MD, and his CDC colleagues. Narayan, formerly chief of the CDC's diabetes epidemiology and statistics branch, is now at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.

"The numbers are very worrying," Narayan tells WebMD. "There is an epidemic going on that -- if left unchecked -- will have a huge effect on the U.S. population and on health care costs."

The new numbers sound an alarm, says Ronald B. Goldberg, MD, chief of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.

"This worsens the predictions that all of us have been making about the future problem that diabetes is going to represent, not only in the U.S. but around the world," Goldberg tells WebMD. "The consequences are more and more suffering -- eye complications, amputations, and markedly more heart diseaseheart disease … And just from an economic point of view, it will cripple our health care budgets."

The new calculations appear in the September issue of Diabetes Care.

Read the entire article at: http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/127/116642.htm

Comments: 10

Magi the magical poet is riding the wind again Sep 20, 2006, 7:59pm EDT

Good heaven, Donald, this is alarming! Diabetes runs in my family, though I don't have it, thank goodness!

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Felicia R. Sep 20, 2006, 10:50pm EDT

there is still you or your kids can get it.. ia m the first of 8 kids on my generation plane to get it

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Visionaerie B. Sep 20, 2006, 11:21pm EDT

It is indeed scary -- almost giving you the impression that our processed food supply is scientifically engineered to make us sick. And given that many food companies also have interests in chemical / drug industries, very plausible. Government programs have led to huge corn surpluses, which are then used to create mass quantities of corn syrup products (my dad worked in that industry). So why not reform the farm programs, to create actual healthy food (such as organics)? Something like a tax credit might work. It is so very important to get educated about nutrition from independent sources. The Weston Price Foundation is a good place to start.

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Donald H. Sep 21, 2006, 5:07am EDT

Visionaerie B.....processed foods may not be designed to do such things but the end result is the same. The more we eat that is not processed/preserved artificially the better off we will be!

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Meryl Johnson Sep 22, 2006, 8:48am EDT

What do you think is causing this? Some of it has to be heredity plus the fact that before the discovery of insulin's relationship to diabetes, diabetics died before having children and thus didn't pass on their genes. We had to expect an increase in cases because of this. It's a metabolic disease, much more complex than was suspected for many years, and it looks like it's possible to at least delay it for many years by careful diet control. Another question I have: How much relationship is there genetically between type 1 and type 2 diabetes? When was this distinction first made?

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Donald H. Sep 22, 2006, 9:32am EDT

Meryl.......it is becuase people too much processed food....do not get enough physical activity.....are obese.....eat too many fats.....do not eat enough fiber....all of these combined are the cause......heredity is the most minor of causations..!

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MrElf 1961 Sep 23, 2006, 2:20am EDT

I have learned more in the last 3 years as a diabetic about the disease than I learned in 18 years before diagnosis as a medic treating diabetics. I THOUGHT I knew what Diabetes was.

It is also denial, Donald. I can't get this. I am me. I am invincible. you know the attitude.

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Donald H. Sep 23, 2006, 6:03am EDT

MrEl F.............when I was diagnosed the first thing I did was to start researching this disease. I then took the course of study to be what in the USA is called a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) but I took it over seas so I am an International Diabetes Trainer (IDT). I learn more about this disease each day that passes.

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Felicia R. Jan 21, 2007, 8:51pm EST

Donald,

I wanted to let you know I added this article with the other articles I just posted in the Featured Section of Type 1 Diabetes... :)

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Felicia R. Mar 16, 2007, 8:20am EDT

You get a lovely Ten... Yea For you!!!! :)

Also hun,

If you have not yet already submitted this to my group called: "D" ~ Articles/Images That Start with the letter "D" (All subjects matter allowed...). Please do so...

But if you had sorry I have not approved it just yet... Fell kind of behind due to appointments so far this week... :)

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Diabetes Forecast Gets Scarier

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