- Diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar.
- The term diabetes was coined by Aretaeus of Cappadocia.
- Diabetes is first recorded in English, in the form diabete, in a medical text written around 1425. In 1675, Thomas Willis added the word mellitus, from the Latin meaning "honey", a reference to the sweet taste of the urine.
- Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common, affecting 90 to 95 percent of the U.S. diabetes population.
- Eighty percent of type 2 diabetes is preventable by changing diet, increasing physical activity and improving the living environment.
- 7.8 percent of the U.S. population have diabetes mellitus.
- Undiagnosed U.S. people with diabetes: 5.7 million people.
- As of 2000 at least 171 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, or 2.8 percent of the population.
- Most cases of diabetes mellitus fall into 3 broad categories: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes.
- 1.600,000 new cases of diabetes mellitus are diagnosed in people aged twenty years and older each year.
- About 1 in every 400 to 600 children and adolescents has type 1 diabetes
- 23.5 million, or 10.7 percent of all people age twenty years or older group have diabetes
- 11.2 percent of all men aged twenty years or older have diabetes mellitus.
- 10.2 percent of all women aged twenty years or older have diabetes mellitus.
- Diabetes mellitus is the 7th leading cause of death listed on United States.
- The risk for stroke is two to four times higher among people with diabetes mellitus.
- India has the world's largest diabetes population (50.8 million).
Diabetes facts
