Issue 174 Item 15 Lifetime Diabetes Risk Is One In Three for Child Born in 2000

Male child has 33% risk; female, 39%, that from the CDC

Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan said, This dire prediction is based on an extrapolation of 17 years of National Health Interview Study data and U.S. Census Bureau statistics. “This is the first study of lifetime risk of diabetes in the United States or any other country.

The incidence of diabetes has increased almost 50% in the past decade, according to the CDC. The incidence is expected to grow an additional 165% by the year 2050 if current trends continue.

The CDC estimates a lifetime risk of 33% for a male child and 39% for a female child. The higher risk in females is attributed to gestational diabetes and a longer life expectancy. The group with the highest lifetime risk is Hispanics, with a risk of 45% for males and 53% for females.

The risk does not diminish significantly in older persons, Dr. Narayan said. “Even at age 60, if that person still had not developed diabetes, he or she still had about a 30% risk.”

For perspective, the average American at age 50 has about a 30% chance of a hip fracture, and a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is about one in eight. “Diabetes is a very serious condition. A male diagnosed at 40 loses about 12 years of life and a female loses 14 years of life, compared with someone without diabetes,” noted Dr. Narayan, chief of the CDC’s diabetes epidemiology section, division of diabetes translation, Atlanta.

Nearly all risk factors for diabetes are increasing in the U.S. population, said Dr. Judith Fradkin, director of the division of diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolic diseases at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Md. “People are more sedentary, heavier, more diverse in terms of ethnicity … that is why these predictions are so dire.”

The study findings underline the importance of diabetes prevention. “We know diabetes prevention programs work,” Dr. Fradkin said. “The predictions we heard earlier when doing nothing do not have to come to fruition.”

About 16 million U.S. adults have prediabetes and are prime targets for prevention efforts, Dr. Fradkin said. Without intervention, this group has an estimated 11% annual progression to diabetes, but lifestyle modification can reduce that risk by 58%, Dr. Narayan said. “At any stage on the continuum, changing lifestyle can make a big difference. You don’t have to meet your ideal body weight. Losing about 15 pounds in a 200-pound person can have huge payoffs.”