Facts About Diabetes
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic, debilitating disease affecting every organ system. There are two major types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food. Type 1 diabetes usually strikes in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, but lasts a lifetime. People with type 1 diabetes must take multiple injections of insulin daily or continually infuse insulin through a pump just to survive. Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder in which a person’s body still produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively. Type 2 is usually diagnosed in adulthood and does not always require insulin injections. However, increased obesity has led to a recent “epidemic” in cases of type 2 diabetes in young adults.
Taking insulin does not cure any type of diabetes nor prevent the possibility of its eventual and devastating effects: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputation, heart attack, stroke, and pregnancy complications.
The Scope of Diabetes
More than 24 million Americans have diabetes (8 percent of the population):
Diagnosed: 17.5 million
Undiagnosed: 6.6 million
As many as 3 million Americans may have type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide and is expected to affect 380 million by 2025.
According to World Health Organization Estimates, this number will more than double by 2030.
In the U.S., a new case of diabetes is diagnosed every 30 seconds; more than 1.5 million people are diagnosed each year.
The Cost of Diabetes
Diabetes is the single most costly chronic disease.
In 2007, diabetes accounted for $174 billion in health-care costs in the U.S.
One in five health-care dollars in the U.S. is spent caring for someone diagnosed with diabetes.
The nation spends $11,744 on each person with diabetes, compared to $2,935 on those who don’t have diabetes, as of 2007.
People with diabetes in the U.S. incur medical expenses that are approximately 2.3 times higher than people without diabetes.
The “National Bill” for hospital stays related to diabetes totaled $58.3 billion in 2007.
An estimated 22 percent of hospital inpatient days in the U.S. were incurred by people with diabetes in 2007.
The Damage Caused by Diabetes
Attacks Many Organ Systems: Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and non-traumatic amputations and a leading cause of nerve damage, stroke, and heart attacks.
Increased Risk: People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than someone without the disease.
Shortens Life: Diabetes kills one American every three minutes and is the sixth leading cause of death reported in the U.S. Life expectancy for people with diabetes is shortened by an average of 7-10 years, and the risk of death for people with diabetes is about two times that of people without diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes, 2004; KRC Research for JDRF, Jan. 2005
For more information, visit the JDRF web site at http://www.jdrf.org or call 800-533-CURE.
