Today is World Diabetes Day, a global observation that coincides with National Diabetes Month, when organizations across the United States work to raise awareness of a disease so serious that it can cause heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure or loss of toes, feet or legs.
Diabetes affects one in 10 adults in the United States, where it is also the seventh leading cause of death. By 2025, as many as one in five Americans could have diabetes.
FHI 360 works with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to expand its National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP), a public–private partnership of community organizations, insurers, employers, health care organizations and government agencies working together to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes — the most common form of diabetes.
The statistics are alarming. One in three American adults has prediabetes, a condition in which they have an elevated blood glucose (sugar) level that is not quite high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Most do not even know they have it. People with prediabetes are five to 15 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. (Learn about the different types of diabetes.)