Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. Risk factors for the most common type include obesity, physical inactivity and aging. Complications can include vision loss, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, amputation of feet or legs and premature death. Patients can manage the disease through diet, exercise and medication.
Among details from the report:
• One-quarter of adults with diabetes don’t know they have it.
• More than 200,000 children and teens have diabetes.
• Diabetes is about twice as common among blacks, Hispanics, American Indian and Alaskan native adults as among whites. But pre-diabetes rates are similar among racial and ethnic groups.
• Diabetes and its complications cost $245 billion in 2012, up from $174 billion in 2010.