Pictured here, from "What the World Eats," a book by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, is all the food eaten by a typical American family in one week. Overconsumption is strongly linked to the rise in type 2 diabetes. The percentage of American adults with the condition has nearly doubled, from 4.9 percent in 1990 to 9.2 percent in 2007.
Diabetes treatment is becoming increasingly expensive and complex, as many people with the condition know all too well. In fact, the need for multiple medications, frequent doctor visits, and blood sugar checks can seem worse than the disease itself for some people. Up to 20 percent of the patients who had hour-long interviews with researchers from the University of Chicago said that they would give up 8 to 10 healthy years in exchange for a life without treatments, according to a recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
To further complicate matters, public-health officials have broadened the definition of prediabetes to include at least one-quarter of the U.S. adult population, adding to the nation's ongoing diabetes epidemic. But those people are not "sick" in the conventional sense. They typically have no symptoms, and most don't even know that their blood sugar is a bit high. Exactly whom to test for this condition and what to do about it remains controversial.
Part of the problem is that with so many researchers working on solutions, the sheer volume of information is overwhelming and sometimes contradictory. But in sifting through the data and talking with experts we uncovered some hopeful news: Recent evidence underscores the effectiveness of simple approaches to diabetes prevention and control.
This article first appeared in the April 2009 issue of Consumer Reports on Health.
