HHS HealthBeat (March 11, 2011)

Dangers of diabetes

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 25.8 million Americans have diabetes. The CDC says 79 million more have prediabetes, in which blood sugar levels are not as high as in diabetes. Prediabetes often develops into type 2 diabetes.

Most U.S. cases of diabetes are type 2, when the body does not respond correctly to insulin. Being inactive and being overweight raise the risk of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. Researcher Ann Albright, who worked on CDC’s Diabetes Fact Sheet, 2011, has advice on how to prevent this:

``Lose about 5 to 7 percent of your body weight and get about 150 minutes of physical activity a week.’’ (6 seconds)

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011