November is Diabetes Awareness Month - A Month Blacks Should Seriously Reflect On!

by Kenny Anderson

Diabetes is a serious chronic ‘metabolic disease’ characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar).

If not ‘managed’ over time diabetes will lead to various organ damage, distress, debilitation, and premature death. According to recent data from the Pan American Health Organization 50-75% of cases of diabetes in the United States is not managed ‘uncontrolled’.

Blacks and Diabetes

Blacks have higher diabetes death rates than whites in the 30 largest cities in the U.S. Currently diabetes is the 5th leading cause of death among Blacks. Indeed for Blacks in America diabetes is an epidemic:

 
*Blacks aged 20 years or older 4.9 million (18.7%) have diagnosed diabetes, according to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) national survey data

*Blacks are 77% more likely to have diagnosed diabetes to compared whites

*Blacks are at a higher risk for prediabetes than whites especially if type 2 diabetes runs in their family. Around 36% of Blacks have prediabetes, where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be type 2 diabetes

*Blacks have very high obesity rates a major risk-factor for diabetes; nearly 50 percent of Blacks are clinically obese: about 40% of Black men and 80% or four out of five Black women are considered overweight or obese

*Blacks with diabetes are at a much greater risk factor for heart disease and stroke, suffering and dying disproportionately from them

*Blacks with diabetes are more at risk for mental health problems (depression, anxiety)

*Black women who develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy face a 52% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future compared to white women diagnosed with gestational diabetes

*Diabetes is the number #1 cause of kidney disease; kidney disease requiring dialysis or transplant is far more common among Blacks. The average life expectancy on dialysis is 5-10 years; the leading cause of death in diabetic individuals on dialysis is ‘heart failure’ (55.6%), while sepsis accounted for 20.6% of the deaths 

*Blacks are 2.6-5.6 times as likely to suffer from kidney disease and are at least 2.6 times more likely to have end stage kidney renal disease due to diabetes than whites

*Black diabetics are 2.7 times as likely to suffer from lower-limb amputations

*Diabetic retinopathy 'disease of the retina' is almost 50% more prevalent in Blacks than whites

*Blacks have a higher risk of developing diabetic eye disease and vision loss than most other racial and ethnic groups; diabetic eye diseases include diabetic retinopathy, macular edema (which usually develops along with diabetic retinopathy), cataracts, and glaucoma

Since millions of Blacks have diabetes and millions more are prediabetic, raising ‘diabetes awareness’ is critical ‘health literacy’ so that many Blacks can reduce the likelihood that they will develop type 2 diabetes or those with it can reduce the likelihood that they’ll get complications from it.

BLACK FOLKS PROMOTING ‘DIABETES AWARENESS’ IS A MUST – SPREAD THE WORD!