| Diabetes |
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Like cancer, diabetes mellitus—diabetes for short—is a group of diseases with a common biochemical characteristic. In diabetes, the common feature is abnormal metabolism of carbo¬hydrates, particularly glucose. This can lead, over many years, to kidney disease, atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke, gan¬grene, and other complications including blindness. In fact, diabetes is the third leading cause of blindness in the United States. Insulin-dependent diabetes usually appears well before the age of 40. The only treatment is regular injections of insulin. About 10 percent of all diabetics—about 1.1 million people in the United States—have insulin-dependent diabetes. The more common form of diabetes is called noninsulin-dependent diabetes. It is closely linked to the resistance to the action of insulin that occurs in obesity. It accounts for about 90 percent of diabetes cases, or nearly 10 million people in the United States. Noninsulin-dependent diabetes usually appears in middle or old age, particularly in people who are overweight. As many as 9 percent of people 65 and older may have this disease. The most important risk factors are in¬creasing age, family history of diabetes, and obesity—especially fat carried in the abdomen. Researchers have found that fast¬ing blood sugar levels tend to increase as body weight in¬creases, but exactly how these risk factors contribute to the development of noninsulin-dependent diabetes is still the subject of research.
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