bad blood
Bad Blood
Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis
By N. R. KLEINFIELD
Published: January 9, 2006
Begin on the sixth floor, third room from the end, swathed in
fluorescence: a 60-year-old woman was having two toes sawed off. One
floor up, corner room: a middle-aged man sprawled, recuperating from a
kidney transplant. Next door: nerve damage. Eighth floor, first room
to the left: stroke. Two doors down: more toes being removed. Next
room: a flawed heart.
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Enlarge This Image
Vincent Laforet for The New York Times
Diabetes, soaring among New Yorkers, has already left a mark on Diane
and Aniello Discala of the Bronx. She lost a leg to it
As always, the beds at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx were
filled with a universe of afflictions. In truth, these assorted
burdens were all the work of a single illness: diabetes. Room after
room, floor after floor, diabetes. On any given day, hospital
officials say, nearly half the patients are there for some trouble
precipitated by the disease.
An estimated 800,000 adult New Yorkers - more than one in every eight
- now have diabetes, and city health officials describe the problem as
a bona fide epidemic. Diabetes is the only major disease in the city
that is growing, both in the number of new cases and the number of
people it kills. And it is growing quickly, even as other scourges
like heart disease and cancers are stable or in decline.
Already, diabetes has swept through families, entire neighborhoods in
the Bronx and broad slices of Brooklyn, where it is such a fact of
life that people describe it casually, almost comfortably, as "getting
the sugar" or having "the sweet blood."
But as alarmed as health officials are about the present, they worry
more about what is to come.
Within a generation or so, doctors fear, a huge wave of new cases
could overwhelm the public health system and engulf growing numbers of
the young, creating a city where hospitals are swamped by the
disease’s handiwork, schools scramble for resources as they
accommodate diabetic children, and the work force abounds with the
blind and the halt.
The prospect is frightening, but it has gone largely unnoticed outside
public health circles. As epidemics go, diabetes has been a quiet one,
provoking little of the fear or the prevention efforts inspired by
AIDS or lung cancer.
In its most common form, diabetes, which allows excess sugar to build
up in the blood and exact ferocious damage throughout the body,
retains an outdated reputation as a relatively benign sickness of the
old. Those who get it do not usually suffer any symptoms for years,
and many have a hard time believing that they are truly ill.
Yet a close look at its surge in New York offers a disturbing glimpse
of where the city, and the rest of the world, may be headed if
diabetes remains unchecked.
The percentage of diabetics in the city is nearly a third higher than
in the nation. New cases have been cropping up close to twice as fast
as cases nationally. And of adults believed to have the illness,
health officials estimate, nearly one-third do not know it.
One in three children born in the United States five years ago are
expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a
projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The
forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two.
New York, perhaps more than any other big city, harbors all the
ingredients for a continued epidemic. It has large numbers of the poor
and obese, who are at higher risk. It has a growing population of
Latinos, who get the disease in disproportionate numbers, and of
Asians, who can develop it at much lower weights than people of other
races.
It is a city of immigrants, where newcomers eating American diets for
the first time are especially vulnerable. It is also yielding to the
same forces that have driven diabetes nationally: an aging population,
a food supply spiked with sugars and fats, and a culture that promotes
overeating and discourages exercise.
Diabetes has no cure. It is progressive and often fatal, and while the
patient lives, the welter of medical complications it sets off can
attack every major organ. As many war veterans lost lower limbs last
year to the disease as American soldiers did to combat injuries in the
entire Vietnam War. Diabetes is the principal reason adults go blind.
So-called Type 2 diabetes, the predominant form and the focus of this
series, is creeping into children, something almost unheard of two
decades ago. The American Diabetes Association says the disease could
actually lower the average life expectancy of Americans for the first
time in more than a century.
Even those who do not get diabetes will eventually feel it, experts
say - in time spent caring for relatives, in higher taxes and
insurance premiums, and in public spending diverted to this single
illness.
"Either we fall apart or we stop this," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden,
commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene.
Yet he and other public health officials acknowledge that their
ability to slow the disease is limited. Type 2 can often be postponed
and possibly prevented by eating less and exercising more. But getting
millions of people to change their behavior, he said, will require
some kind of national crusade.
* Copyright 2006
–
"It is vain to expect our prayers to be answered if we do not strive
as well as pray"
May 7th, 2003 at 4:03 am
That was a good article! Are you from NYC?
—– Original Message —–
From: Ruby
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 12:19 PM
Subject: [Diabetes_And_Byetta] bad blood
Bad Blood
Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis
By N. R. KLEINFIELD
Published: January 9, 2006
Begin on the sixth floor, third room from the end, swathed in
fluorescence: a 60-year-old woman was having two toes sawed off. One
floor up, corner room: a middle-aged man sprawled, recuperating from a
kidney transplant. Next door: nerve damage. Eighth floor, first room
to the left: stroke. Two doors down: more toes being removed. Next
room: a flawed heart.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Vincent Laforet for The New York Times
Diabetes, soaring among New Yorkers, has already left a mark on Diane
and Aniello Discala of the Bronx. She lost a leg to it
As always, the beds at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx were
filled with a universe of afflictions. In truth, these assorted
burdens were all the work of a single illness: diabetes. Room after
room, floor after floor, diabetes. On any given day, hospital
officials say, nearly half the patients are there for some trouble
precipitated by the disease.
An estimated 800,000 adult New Yorkers - more than one in every eight
- now have diabetes, and city health officials describe the problem as
a bona fide epidemic. Diabetes is the only major disease in the city
that is growing, both in the number of new cases and the number of
people it kills. And it is growing quickly, even as other scourges
like heart disease and cancers are stable or in decline.
Already, diabetes has swept through families, entire neighborhoods in
the Bronx and broad slices of Brooklyn, where it is such a fact of
life that people describe it casually, almost comfortably, as "getting
the sugar" or having "the sweet blood."
But as alarmed as health officials are about the present, they worry
more about what is to come.
Within a generation or so, doctors fear, a huge wave of new cases
could overwhelm the public health system and engulf growing numbers of
the young, creating a city where hospitals are swamped by the
disease’s handiwork, schools scramble for resources as they
accommodate diabetic children, and the work force abounds with the
blind and the halt.
The prospect is frightening, but it has gone largely unnoticed outside
public health circles. As epidemics go, diabetes has been a quiet one,
provoking little of the fear or the prevention efforts inspired by
AIDS or lung cancer.
In its most common form, diabetes, which allows excess sugar to build
up in the blood and exact ferocious damage throughout the body,
retains an outdated reputation as a relatively benign sickness of the
old. Those who get it do not usually suffer any symptoms for years,
and many have a hard time believing that they are truly ill.
Yet a close look at its surge in New York offers a disturbing glimpse
of where the city, and the rest of the world, may be headed if
diabetes remains unchecked.
The percentage of diabetics in the city is nearly a third higher than
in the nation. New cases have been cropping up close to twice as fast
as cases nationally. And of adults believed to have the illness,
health officials estimate, nearly one-third do not know it.
One in three children born in the United States five years ago are
expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a
projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The
forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two.
New York, perhaps more than any other big city, harbors all the
ingredients for a continued epidemic. It has large numbers of the poor
and obese, who are at higher risk. It has a growing population of
Latinos, who get the disease in disproportionate numbers, and of
Asians, who can develop it at much lower weights than people of other
races.
It is a city of immigrants, where newcomers eating American diets for
the first time are especially vulnerable. It is also yielding to the
same forces that have driven diabetes nationally: an aging population,
a food supply spiked with sugars and fats, and a culture that promotes
overeating and discourages exercise.
Diabetes has no cure. It is progressive and often fatal, and while the
patient lives, the welter of medical complications it sets off can
attack every major organ. As many war veterans lost lower limbs last
year to the disease as American soldiers did to combat injuries in the
entire Vietnam War. Diabetes is the principal reason adults go blind.
So-called Type 2 diabetes, the predominant form and the focus of this
series, is creeping into children, something almost unheard of two
decades ago. The American Diabetes Association says the disease could
actually lower the average life expectancy of Americans for the first
time in more than a century.
Even those who do not get diabetes will eventually feel it, experts
say - in time spent caring for relatives, in higher taxes and
insurance premiums, and in public spending diverted to this single
illness.
"Either we fall apart or we stop this," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden,
commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene.
Yet he and other public health officials acknowledge that their
ability to slow the disease is limited. Type 2 can often be postponed
and possibly prevented by eating less and exercising more. But getting
millions of people to change their behavior, he said, will require
some kind of national crusade.
* Copyright 2006
–
"It is vain to expect our prayers to be answered if we do not strive
as well as pray"
Aesop, 6th century story-teller
Anything posted in this group is the opinion of the person who posted it.
May 7th, 2003 at 2:34 pm
I went to the clinic this morning to get a script written to renew my
Lantus from the company and they tested my BG of course. Boy was that
ole doc proud of me*G* my level was 74!!! I havent had an a1c done
recently but will have one done in March when I see my new doc. I
qualified for a low income program at the local hospital run clinic so
I wont have to pay for the tests nor will the free clinic. I love the
doc I see at the free clinic. He is retired but keeps up with diabetes
care and was very happy with my numbers.
We will see what my a1c says tho cause I run out of strips frequently
and dont test as often as I should.