Diabetes

Diabetes is a group of chronic metabolic diseases characterized by hyperglycemia due to a defect in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Diabetes mellitus increases morbidity, mortality, and health care costs through acute and chronic complications, including ketoacidosis, hyperosmolarity, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, retinopathy, neuropathy, and limb amputations.

The prevalence of diabetes increases with age. Approximately 8.7% of American adults are affected by diabetes mellitus, and most develop type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The incidence of T2DM increased by 61% in the United States between 1990 and 2002. Population estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that approximately 19 million persons have diabetes mellitus. In addition, estimates of the prevalence of prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose [IFG] or impaired glucose tolerance [IGT]) indicate that approximately 35 million persons 40 to 74 years of age have IFG and that 16 million have IGT, totaling 51 million adults with prediabetes using the new American Diabetes Association (ADA) diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) data show that at least 47 million individuals in the United States have metabolic syndrome, a combination of conditions and diseases (obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and T2DM) tightly linked by increased insulin resistance, dramatically increasing the risk of cardiovascular events.