National study finds US Latinos prone to developing Type 2 diabetes | Multi-American | 89.3 KPCC: Initial findings from a major national study of Latino health were released today by the National Institutes of Health. The study explores in detail the health experiences of more than 16,000 Latinos in four U.S. cities, including how certain diseases and risk factors play out differently among distinct national-origin groups.
Among other things, the study found a high prevalence of pre-diabetes and uncontrolled diabetes in Latinos, and that Latinos are more prone to develop Type 2 diabetes than other ethnic groups. According to the report, about 1 in 3 Latinos had pre-diabetes and among those who already had the disease, only about half had it under control.
These findings played out fairly evenly among all the national-origin groups studied -- those being respondents who self-identified as being of Mexican, Central American, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and South American origin. But in other cases, different groups of Latinos experienced illness in different ways, with some suffering from certain conditions more than others.
