Press Release
Healthier lifestyles, better disease management are helping people live longer
Death rates for people with diabetes dropped substantially from 1997
to 2006, especially deaths related to heart disease and stroke,
according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
Deaths from all causes declined by 23 percent, and deaths related
to heart disease and stroke dropped by 40 percent, according to the
study published today in the journal Diabetes Care (
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/35/6/1252.full
).
Scientists evaluated 1997-2004 National Health Interview Survey data
from nearly 250,000 adults who were linked to the National Death Index.
Although adults with diabetes still are more likely to die younger
than those who do not have the disease, the gap is narrowing.
Improved medical treatment for cardiovascular disease, better
management of diabetes, and some healthy lifestyle changes contributed
to the decline. People with diabetes were less likely to smoke and more
likely to be physically active than in the past. Better control of
high blood pressure and high cholesterol also may have contributed to
improved health. However, obesity levels among people with diabetes
continued to increase.
“Taking care of your heart through healthy lifestyle choices is
making a difference, but Americans continue to die from a disease that
can be prevented,” said Ann Albright, Ph.D., R.D., director of CDC’s
Division of Diabetes Translation. “Although the cardiovascular disease
death rate for people with diabetes has dropped, it is still twice as
high as for adults without diabetes.”
Previous studies have found that rates of heart disease and stroke
are declining for all U.S. adults. Those rates are dropping faster for
people with diabetes compared to adults without diabetes. Recent CDC
studies also have found declining rates of kidney failure, amputation
of feet and legs, and hospitalization for heart disease and stroke
among people with diabetes.
Because people with diabetes are living longer and the rate of new
cases being diagnosed is increasing, scientists expect the total
number of people with the disease will continue to rise. The number of
Americans diagnosed with diabetes has more than tripled since 1980,
primarily due to type 2 diabetes, which is closely linked to a rise in
obesity, inactivity and older age. CDC estimates that 25.8 million
Americans have diabetes, and 7 million of them do not know they have the
disease.
CDC and its partners are working on a variety of initiatives to
prevent type 2 diabetes and to reduce its complications. CDC leads the
National Diabetes Prevention Program, a public-private partnership
designed to bring evidence-based programs for preventing type 2
diabetes to communities. The program supports establishing a network of
lifestyle-change classes for overweight or obese people at high risk of
developing type 2 diabetes.
“Diabetes carries significant personal and financial costs for
individuals, their families, and the health care systems that treat
them,” said Edward W. Gregg, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and chief
of epidemiology and statistics in CDC’s Division of Diabetes
Translation. “As the number of people with diabetes increases, it will
be more important than ever to manage the disease to reduce
complications and premature deaths.”
Controlling levels of blood sugar (glucose), cholesterol and blood
pressure helps people with diabetes reduce the chance of developing
serious complications, including heart disease, stroke, blindness and
kidney disease.
In 2001, the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP), a joint
effort of CDC and NIH with the support of more than 200 partners,
developed a campaign to raise awareness of the link between diabetes
and heart disease and reinforce the importance of a comprehensive
diabetes care plan that focuses on the ABCs of diabetes – A1C (a
measure of blood glucose control over a two- to three-month period),
Blood pressure and Cholesterol. For more information, visit
www.YourDiabetesInfo.org or call toll-free 1-888-693-NDEP (1-888-693-6337).
Last year CDC and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
launched Million Hearts, an initiative to prevent 1 million heart
attacks and strokes over the next five years. The initiative focuses
on two main goals: empowering Americans to make healthy choices and
improving care for people, focusing on aspirin for people at risk,
blood pressure control, cholesterol management and smoking cessation.
More than 2 million heart attacks and strokes occur every year, and
treatment for these conditions and other vascular diseases account for
about 1 of every 6 health care dollars. Up to 20 percent of deaths
from heart attack and 13 percent of deaths from stroke are attributable
to diabetes or prediabetes. For more information on Million Hearts,
visit
http://millionhearts.hhs.gov.
Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in 2009 and is the
leading cause of new cases of kidney failure, blindness among adults
younger than 75, and amputation of feet and legs not related to injury.
People with diagnosed diabetes have medical costs that are more than
twice as high as for people without the disease. The total costs of
diabetes are an estimated $174 billion annually, including $116 billion
in direct medical costs.
For information about diabetes visit
www.cdc.gov/diabetes or the National Diabetes Education Program at
www.yourdiabetesinfo.org.
CDC works 24/7
saving lives, protecting people from health threats, and saving money
through prevention. Whether these threats are global or domestic,
chronic or acute, curable or preventable, natural disaster or
deliberate attack, CDC is the nation’s health protection agency.
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