Today, diabetes mellitus is one of the most serious health challenges facing the United States. The following statistics illustrate the magnitude of this disease among African Americans.
- 2.8 million African Americans have diabetes.1
- On average, African Americans are twice as likely to have diabetes as white Americans of similar age.1
- Approximately 13 percent of all African Americans have diabetes.1
- African Americans with diabetes are more likely to develop diabetes complications and experience greater disability from the complications than white Americans with diabetes.
- Death rates for people with diabetes are 27 percent higher for African Americans compared with whites.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood glucose. It results from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Diabetes can be associated with serious complications and premature death, but people with diabetes can take measures to reduce the likelihood of such occurrences.
Most African Americans (about 90 percent to 95 percent) with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. This type of diabetes usually develops in adults and is caused by the body's resistance to the action of insulin and to impaired insulin secretion. It can be treated with diet, exercise, diabetes pills, and injected insulin. A small number of African Americans (about 5 percent to 10 percent) have type 1 diabetes, which usually develops before age 20 and is always treated with insulin.
Diabetes can be diagnosed by three methods:
- A fasting plasma glucose test with a value of 126 milligrams/deciliter (mg/dL) or greater.
- A nonfasting plasma glucose value of 200 mg/dL or greater in people with symptoms of diabetes.
- An abnormal oral glucose tolerance test with a 2-hour glucose value of 200 mg/dL or greater.
Each test must be confirmed, on another day, by any one of the above methods. The criteria used to diagnose diabetes were revised in 1997.2