Rate of Diabetes Cases Doubles in 10 Years: CDC

Oct. 31 -- THURSDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- The rate of new cases of type 2 diabetes has nearly doubled in the United States in the last decade, with most new cases appearing in southern states, federal officials reported Thursday.

New diagnoses of type 2 diabetes rose from 4.8 per 1,000 people from 1995 to 1997 to 9.1 per 1,000 people from 2005 to 2007. These new cases mirror the increase in obesity rates, and obesity is a leading cause of the blood sugar disease, officials said.

"The risk factors for type 2 diabetes include obesity and inactivity, and we know the South has a high prevalence of both obesity and physical inactivity when compared to the other regions in the United States," said study author Karen Kirtland, a data analyst in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Diabetes Translation.

"The message that we want to get out is to promote lifestyle interventions for people who are at risk for diabetes," Kirtland said. "People who are at risk for the disease may be able to delay it or prevent it by losing weight, being physically active and making healthy food choices."

For the study, published in the Oct. 31 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Kirtland's group used the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to collect data on new diabetes cases in 33 states that reported data for both time periods.

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The researchers said the state-by-state breakdown, the first of its kind, found that new cases of diabetes ranged from a low of five per 1,000 people in Minnesota to 12.7 per 1,000 in West Virginia. The territory of Puerto Rico had the largest number of new cases at 12.8 per 1,000 people.

The highest numbers of new type 2 diabetes cases were in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, the researchers found.

An estimated 23.6 million American adults and children have diabetes, but almost one-quarter of them are unaware they have the disease. In 90 percent to 95 percent of cases, people have type 2 disease.