About
With your help, we are moving research from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside, translating scientific advances into longer, healthier lives for those with diabetes. With your help, we are moving closer to our goal...a cure for diabetes and its complications.
Mary Tyler Moore
International Chairman
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic, debilitating disease affecting every organ system. There are two major types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food. Type 1 diabetes usually strikes in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, but lasts a lifetime. People with type 1 diabetes must take multiple injections of insulin daily or continually infuse insulin through a pump just to survive. Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder in which a person’s body still produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively. Type 2 is usually diagnosed in adulthood and does not always require insulin injections. However, increased obesity has led to a recent “epidemic” in cases of type 2 diabetes in young adults.
Taking insulin does not cure any type of diabetes nor prevent the possibility of its eventual and devastating effects: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputation, heart attack, stroke, and pregnancy complications.
The Scope of Diabetes
More than 26 million Americans have diabetes (8.3 percent
of the population):
• Diagnosed: 18.8 million
• Undiagnosed: 7 million
As many as 3 million Americans may have type 1 diabetes.† Diabetes currently affects 366 million people worldwide and is expected to affect 552 million by 2030. In the U.S., a new case of diabetes is diagnosed every 30 seconds.
The Cost of Diabetes
Diabetes is the single most costly chronic disease.
Type 1 diabetes accounted for $14.9 billion in health-care costs in the U.S. each year, while all types of diabetes combine to account for $174 billion annual costs.
Diabetes accounts for 32 percent of all Medicare expenditures.
The nation spends $11,700 on each person with diabetes, compared to $4,400 on those who don’t have diabetes, as of 2011.
People with diabetes in the U.S. incur medical expenses that are approximately 2.3 times higher than people without diabetes.
The Harm Caused by Diabetes
Attacks Many Organ Systems: Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and non-traumatic amputations and a leading cause of nerve damage, stroke, and heart attacks.
Increased Risk: People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than someone without the disease.
Shortens Life: Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. The risk of death got people with diabetes is about double that of people of similar age without diabetes.
† Type 1 Diabetes, 2011; KRC Research for JDRF, Jan. 2011