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CDC releases new diabetes estimates for U.S.

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Los Angeles Times

A factsheet released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that numbers of diabetes cases in the United States continued to grow in 2010.

Highlights from the factsheet:

  • 25.8 million people in the United States -- 8.3% of the U.S. population -- have diabetes. That’s a 9% increase over the 2008 estimate.
  • Most of those affected -- somewhere between 90% and 95% -- have Type 2 diabetes.
  • Among American residents 65 years and older, 10.9 million -- 26.9% -- had diabetes in 2010.
  • Seven million cases of the disease were undiagnosed.
  • The CDC estimated that more than a third of adults 20 years or older are prediabetic, which means their blood-sugar is higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. Those people have an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
  • Diabetes is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. The risk for death among people with diabetes is about twice that of people of similar age but without diabetes, the CDC said.
  • Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults aged 20–74 years. It is also the leading cause of kidney failure.

The CDC gathered the statistics from a variety of surveys and studies. The director of the center’s Division of Diabetes Translation, Ann Albright, said in a press release that the new figures “show how important it is to prevent Type 2 diabetes.”

RELATED: From The Times, on the new CDC estimates.

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RELATED: More Times coverage of diabetes.

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