Fast Facts from the WHA Information Center: November is National Diabetes Month
November is known as National Diabetes Month to bring attention and education to people about diabetes and support for those who are diagnosed.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than 37 million people have diabetes, yet 1 in 5 of those people are not aware they have it. Diabetes is the eighth-leading cause of death in the U.S., and experts think that may be underreported. The American Diabetes Association reported that for Wisconsin, over 405,000 adults are diagnosed with diabetes and there are over 1.5 million who are prediabetic. They estimate that over 30,000 Wisconsinites are diagnosed with diabetes each year. Within the last 20 years, diabetes diagnoses among adults have more than doubled. The CDC’s National Diabetes Statistics Report found there are 96 million people in the U.S. aged 18 and older who are prediabetic—roughly 38% of the U.S. adult population.
The WHA Information Center analyzed Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes claims from Wisconsin hospitals for January 2019 through June 2023. The timeline depicting visit counts for a diabetes related encounter has a few dips when COVID-19 was impacting hospitals severely, but otherwise appears to be slowly increasing in visits. The average age of a patient visiting for diabetes is 65 years of age. Males have a slightly higher percentage of visit counts in comparison to females. The age group with the highest number of visits is ages 61-70.
Below are some risk factors from the American Diabetes Association that impact being diagnosed with diabetes:
- Being Overweight: it impacts more than your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It leads to unhealthy cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, high blood sugar and even stroke.
- Smoking: reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches your organs and can cause high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol, heart attacks and strokes.
- High blood pressure: Two of three people with diabetes report having high blood pressure or take prescription medications to lower their blood pressure.
- Age: As you get older, your risk for type 2 diabetes goes up.
- Alcohol: Drinking more than one drink a day for women or two drinks a day for men raises the risk for diabetes.