The Diabetes Fact Sheet is a public health resource that is compiled every few years by the Division of Diabetes Translation, which is a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The organization established a division to focus solely on Diabetes Mellitus in 1977. They envision a world that is free from the destruction of the disease and its complications and they make it their mission to reduce the devastation of Diabetes to the public through research, partnerships, education, leaderships, programs, and policies that impart the meaning of scientific finding into everyday practices.
The do not have a facility that serves the public like a health department, but they provide other invaluable resources that are available online. These include for people living with Diabetes, such as diet, exercise, and financial assistance as well as education for people who do not have the disease, but may know of someone who does. They also list data regarding statistics, programs in the community, publications, and other helpful resources. The Diabetes Fact Sheet is a complete source for any information that anyone with or without Diabetes could ever ask for.
Diabetes Fact Sheet – 2011
While perusing the Diabetes Fact Sheet for 2011, there is one Diabetes fact that an individual cannot escape-the number of people who suffer from this disease. They estimate that in 2010, 18.8 million people suffered from Diabetes Mellitus. What is even more interesting is that another 7 million people have Diabetes, but they do not know it! These numbers combined equals 25.8 million people, which represents 8.3% of the population.
They estimate that another 79 million people are pre-Diabetic, based on results from fasting glucose tolerance tests and Hemoglobin A1c tests. Another fact about Diabetes is that if these people do not change their lifestyles accordingly, they are bound to become Diabetic too, in addition to the 1.9 million people aged twenty and older who were newly diagnosed in 2010. Among these individuals, 90% of these people are developing type 2 Diabetes, which can be prevented with diet, exercise, and other lifestyle modifications.
Diabetes Fact Sheet – Gestational Diabetes
The Diabetes Fact Sheet also lists information regarding Gestational Diabetes, which is a form of type 2 Diabetes that pregnant women can develop. According to the CDC, up to 10% of all pregnant women will develop Gestational Diabetes during their pregnancy. What is even more astounding is that this type of Diabetes should resolve itself after the baby is born, yet many women receive a type 2 Diabetes diagnosis immediately after delivery. In addition, women who had Gestational Diabetes are 35-60% more prone to developing type 2 Diabetes in the next ten to twenty years. Out of the pregnancies that incur Diabetes, 18% of these were negatively impacted by the disease, whether it was a birth defect, weight gain, blood pressure increase or another factor.
