Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Diabetes Rate Soars, Especially Among Blacks And Hispanics

Diabetes Rate Soars, Especially Among Blacks And Hispanics: While Americans can now expect to live longer with diabetes, about two in five will develop the disease over the course of their lifetimes -- a significant jump from previous rate estimates, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers also found that black and Hispanic people are disproportionally affected, with a lifetime risk of more than 50 percent compared to the general population's 40 percent.

These findings have implications for a generation who are still children: The rate increases apply to adults, but also to those born in the first decade of the new millennium, reported Mother Jones.

"We weren't necessarily surprised that it increased, but we didn't expect it to increase this much," the study's lead author, Edward Gregg, chief of the epidemiology and statistics branch in the Division of Diabetes Translation at the CDC, told HealthDay. "Forty percent is a humbling number."