CDC WARNING: About half of Americans have diabetes or are at risk

A new report out from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that nearly half of all Americans either have diabetes or are at high risk for developing the condition.

Diabetes is a disease that hinders the body’s ability to produce and respond to insulin resulting in an abnormal metabolism.

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Prediabetes is a condition in which a person’s blood sugar is high but not high enough to be considered full-blown diabetes. If left untreated, prediabetes can eventually become type 2 diabetes.

The CDC report shows that 30.4 million people in the U.S. have diabetes. Around 23.1 million of those people have been diagnosed while 7.2 million have gone undiagnosed.

Around 13 percent of people in the Dayton area purchased diabetes medication over the past year, according to local market research by Nielsen Scarborough. The number indicates there may be far fewer people in the Dayton area with diabetes or that there are people undiagnosed or using alternative treatments.

The CDC also estimated that 84.1 million Americans aged 18 years or older had prediabetes in 2015, meaning 33.9 percent of that age group was at high risk for developing the disease.

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Below are some of the top stats pulled from the CDC report:

• 30.3 million Americans have diabetes.

• 23.1 million Americans have diagnosed diabetes.

• 7.2 million Americans have undiagnosed diabetes.

• 84.1 million American adults have prediabetes.

• 1.5 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed among American adults in 2015.

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• 132,000 U.S. children have been diagnosed with diabetes.

• $245 billion is the estimated total cost of treating diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. per year.

• $13,700 is the average medical expense per year of someone diagnosed with diabetes.

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