I found this today -
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http://today.reuters.com/news/newsa...&src=rss&rpc=22

Significant increase diabetes prevalence in US
Tue May 30, 2006 6:42pm ET

By Charnicia Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than one out of every three individuals in the United States have diabetes and another 26 percent have impaired fasting glucose, which increases the risk of developing diabetes, new study findings suggest.

The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes has increased in recent years, while undiagnosed diabetes and impaired fasting glucose has remained constant over the past decade.

"Despite public health messages, we're not finding a counterbalance of fewer people with undiagnosed diabetes," study co-author Dr. Catherine C. Cowie, of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, in Bethesda, told Reuters Health.

The findings are based on an analysis of four years of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The study included information on 4,761 adults, age 20 years or older, who were classified according to their glycemic status. Cowie and her team compared data from the 1999-2002 with data from 1988-1994.

Over 35 percent of study participants, representing 73.3 million individuals had diabetes or impaired fasting glucose in 2002, the researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care. A total 9.3 percent had diabetes in 1988-2002 and the prevalence of undiagnosed remained stable at 2.8 percent during this period.

However, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes rose from 5.1 percent in 1988-1994 to 6.5 percent in 1999-2002. They also estimate that about one third of diabetics are undiagnosed.

"We were surprised by the fact that diagnosed diabetes is increasing," Cowie said. "We need to do a better job of diagnosing those one in three who don't know they have it (diabetes) and finding those with impaired fasting glucose."

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, June 2006.



© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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Read this part again....
The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes has increased in recent years, while undiagnosed diabetes and impaired fasting glucose has remained constant over the past decade.

Here is my question, if it is undiagnosed, how do they know the numbers have remained constant?

Good point! Maybe they take it from newly diagnosed numbers and extrapolate (which is just a fancy word for assume and we all know what happens when you do that!).

One reason diabetes is more prevalent is that the fasting blood sugar number for diabetes was lowered - making more people "diabetic". The same thing has been done with cholesterol numbers and blood pressure.

They extrapolate the number of undiagnosesd cases from the new cases diagnosed each year.

And yeah, they keep lowering the ranges. It's an automatic money maker.

... so big both big pharma and medical community can increase their profits. I thought about it and it does seem like a consipracy to me, since the food pyramid promoting same way of eating, how else they will conquer diabetic epidemic if not by researching and developing more anti-diabetic and CHO lowering drugs along with BP medications.
I am sure these numbers will be lowered again in near future, so pretty much all population wil be on statins and diabetic meds.
JMHO

Ms. Huggins has misinterpreted the data. Her source reference does NOT say that one in three individuals has diabetes. The source also does not say how participants for the survey were selected.

Here is the article from the source quoted by the Reuters story (IFG=Impaired Fasting Glucose):

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cg...tract/29/6/1263

"RESULTS—The crude prevalence of total diabetes in 1999–2002 was 9.3% (19.3 million, 2002 U.S. population), consisting of 6.5% diagnosed and 2.8% undiagnosed. An additional 26.0% had IFG, totaling 35.3% (73.3 million) with either diabetes or IFG. The prevalence of total diabetes rose with age, reaching 21.6% for those aged 65 years. The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes was twice as high in non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican Americans compared with non-Hispanic whites (both P < 0.00001), whereas the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes was similar by race/ethnicity, adjusted for age and sex. The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes was similar by sex, but prevalences of undiagnosed diabetes and IFG were significantly higher in men. The crude prevalence of diagnosed diabetes rose significantly from 5.1% in 1988–1994 to 6.5% in 1999–2002, but the crude prevalences were stable for undiagnosed diabetes (from 2.7 to 2.8%) and IFG (from 24.7 to 26.0%). Results were similar after adjustment for age and sex."

From American Diabetes Org:

http://www.diabetes.org/for-media/d...re/10-24-03.jsp

"Under the new definition, the cutpoint for normal fasting blood glucose levels was dropped from 110 mg/dl to 100 mg/dl, meaning that a value of 100 mg/dl or above would lead to a diagnosis of impaired fasting glucose (IFG), which is included in the term pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes is the state that occurs when a person's blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes. Studies show that many people who fall in the pre-diabetic range will go on to develop diabetes within 10 years."

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"People with pre-diabetes have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to people with blood glucose levels in the normal range. The DPP and other studies have shown that people with pre-diabetes can prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes by up to 58 percent through changes to their lifestyle that include modest weight loss and regular exercise."