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Diabetes Fact Sheet - Why Diabetes Demands a Cure
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Diabetes Fact Sheet |
| Diabetes Mellitus is a
chronic metabolic disorder that adversely affects the
body's ability to manufacture or use insulin, a hormone
necessary to permit the body to use food as energy.
|
The World Health Organization estimates that there are
between 100 and 120 million people with diabetes worldwide.
In the United States 16 million people have diabetes:
- Eight million Americans have been diagnosed with
diabetes, and a new case is diagnosed every minute.
- Another eight million have the disease but are
undiagnosed.
- Diabetes significantly increases an individual's chance
of premature death and often changes his lifestyle
dramatically--yet half of all Americans with diabetes do
not know they have the disease.
There are two major types of diabetes: Type I
(insulin-dependent, early onset or juvenile diabetes) and Type II
(non-insulin-dependent or maturity-onset diabetes). In Type I,
the body produces no insulin. In Type II, the body produces
insulin, but does not use it effectively.
- The federal government estimates that there are 800,000
people with insulin-dependent diabetes (Type I). Type I
diabetes is often called juvenile diabetes because its
onset is usually before age 30. It is considered an
autoimmune disease.
- In order to stay alive, people with insulin-dependent
diabetes must inject themselves with insulin up to six
times a day and check their blood glucose level up to
eight times a day. Diabetes treatment takes one to three
hours a day. Over a lifetime, the average individual with
Type I diabetes will spend close to 60,000 hours doing
self-treatment.
- There are between 7 and 7.5 million people with
non-insulin-dependent (Type II) diabetes. This disease
usually develops in adults over age 40. Some 40 percent
of these patients require some insulin to manage their
diabetes.
Diabetes is a contributing factor of death from other
major diseases. Diabetes alone is a leading cause of death by
disease.
- The life expectancy of people with diabetes averages 20
years less than that of people without diabetes.
Middle-aged people with diabetes have a death rate twice
as high as middle-aged people without diabetes.
- People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to
have heart and vascular disease than people without
diabetes.
- People with diabetes are 250% more likely to have a
stroke.
- Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease,
accounting for more than one-third of new cases. It is
also the primary cause of non-congenital kidney disease,
accounting for one-fourth of all new cases.
- The death rate among infants born to mothers with
diabetes is two to three times as high as for women
without diabetes.
Diabetes can cause life-changing disability.
- More than half of all leg amputations in the U.S. are due
to diabetes.
- Diabetes is the leading cause of new blindness among
adults 20-74 years of age.
- About 60 to 70 percent of people with diabetes have mild
to severe nerve damage.
Diabetes affects all ethnic and racial groups:
- Caucasians: 6%;
- Puerto Rican Americans: 10.9%;
- African Americans: 9.6%;
- Mexican Americans: 9.6%;
- Cuban Americans: 9.1%; and
- American Indians: ranging from 5% to 50%.
One out of every four Medicare dollars is spent on
diabetes or its complications, and one out of every seven dollars
spent on health care annually in the U.S. is spent on it.
- The U.S. health care expenditures for people with
diabetes exceeds $130 billion.
- Total direct and indirect cost (disability; work loss;
premature death) of diabetes care costs Medicare $28.6
billion annually.
- The average lifetime costs of diabetes for a child
diagnosed at age three is $600,000.
Sources
- Diabetes Statistics, NIDDK, 1995.
- Diabetes in America, 1995.
- Lewin VHI Study, 1994.
- World Health Organization, 1994.
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Copyright © 1996 Juvenile Diabetes
Foundation International. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The BETA SOCIETY, COUNTDOWN, CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT DIABETES,
THE DIABETES RESEARCH FOUNDATION, JDF, JUVENILE DIABETES
FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL, THE ONLY REMEDY IS A CURE, WALK FOR THE
CURE, 1-800-JDF-CURE and 1-800-WALK-JDF are Trademarks and
Service marks of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International.
E-mail comments to info@jdfcure.com
Juvenile Diabetes Foundation
The Diabetes Research Foundation
120 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005-4001
800-JDF-CURE
212-785-9500
Fax 212-785-9595
