Twenty-nine million people in the United States have diabetes. If left untreated, diabetes can cause serious health-related complications. The total estimated cost of diabetes in the United States was $245 billion in 2012, which includes both health care costs and lost productivity.
Researchers from Social & Scientific Inc. reviewed the records of 26,000 people from a long-standing national survey to determine prevalence and trends in diabetes. Overall, about 14% of the population has diabetes, a third of whom are undiagnosed. They also found that more than one third of the U.S. population has pre-diabetes. The current results are the first estimates for diabetes in Asian-Americans. Their prevalence of diabetes was 20 percent, about as high as it is in blacks and Hispanics. Another alarming finding is that up to 50 percent of Asians and Hispanics with diabetes were unaware they had the condition.
Researchers concluded, no matter what a person's age, race, ethnic group, or socio-economic status is, diabetes still continues to rise in the United States.
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