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As many have heard repeatedly, diabetes is epidemic in the United States. There are those who believe that if people just lost weight and exercised, they would be fine.
That is not the whole story, and those who have diabetes know this better than anyone else does, as do their families. There are other risk factors, including genetics, that can contribute to the risk of developing diabetes.
We need to stop diabetes for many reasons. The newest figures for the costs of diabetes are staggering and merit attention. A recent study published by the American Diabetes Association has estimated that the total economic cost of diagnosed diabetes in 2012 was $245 billion. This is a 41 percent increase from previous estimates of $174 billion in 2007.
This number reflects costs for hospitalization and emergency care, office visits and medications.
The key factors that explain the increase is that more and more people are now being treated for diabetes because the incidence of diabetes is increasing dramatically. The indirect costs of diabetes include absenteeism, reduced productivity at work, unemployment caused by diabetes related disability and lost productivity because more people with diabetes die prematurely.
It is estimated that 26 million people in the United States have diabetes yet one quarter of them do not know it. An additional 79 million people have pre-diabetes, and without preventive treatment may go on to develop type 2 diabetes.
More than one dollar of every $10 in health care costs in this country is spent on the care of people with diagnosed diabetes. One in three American adults will have diabetes in 2050.
This is unacceptable!
In New Mexico 7.7 percent of the population has diabetes. That is 161,700 people with at a yearly cost of $1.53 billion. In some New Mexico counties, over 10 percent of the population has diabetes.
In fact, everyone in New Mexico knows someone with diabetes.
What can you and I do about this?
We need to speak with our legislators and ask them to help support diabetes research and prevention. The National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases need money to fund diabetes research, the Centers for Disease Control need funding for diabetes programs to teach people with diabetes how to avoid the devastating complications of diabetes. More importantly, we need to ask our legislators for $20 billion to help fund the National Diabetes Prevention Program.
The program has shown that with intensive lifestyle change the risk of developing type 2 diabetes can be prevented or at least delayed by 58 percent.
Among high risk individuals age 60 or over, 71 percent can reduce their risk of developing diabetes through exercising 150 minutes a week and losing 5 percent to 7 percent of their body weight.
Imagine a life free of diabetes and its burdens. Imagine a life free of suffering from diabetes.
Please ask your representatives to support diabetes prevention and research. We must find a cure to this disease that is crippling us physically, emotionally, socially and financially.
Call your legislators and ask them to support funding for diabetes research and prevention.
Marjorie Cypress is a nurse practitioner, certified diabetes educator and 2013 president elect, Health Care and Education for the American Diabetes Association.
