Diabetes: A State-by-State Breakdown

[cali]

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: October 12, 2009

Among Americans 30 and older, 13.7 percent of men and 11.9 percent of women have diabetes. Almost one-third of them have never received a diagnosis of the disease.


By applying statistical techniques to two databases, one with numbers gathered at the state level and the other national, researchers have arrived at what they believe are highly accurate estimates of prevalence, both diagnosed and not, in each state.

Colorado, Minnesota, Montana and Vermont have low rates, with Vermont the lowest at 6.1 percent for people 30 to 59 and 19.9 percent for people over 60. Southeastern states have the highest rates, and Mississippi, where 11.4 percent of people 30 to 59 and 27.7 percent of those over 60 are diabetic, has the highest of all.

“Visually it’s very clear what we found — the stark difference between the Southeast and the rest of the country,” said the lead author, Goodarz Danaei, a research fellow in epidemiology at Harvard. “The Southern States have a very dangerous aggregation of risk factors for heart disease: obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.”

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13stat.html

[malaise]

1. Very interesting

Thanks

Rec

[cap]

2. so... on the national plans, women in the North East are subsidizing the

bad health of the folks in the South. Yup... let's do the "opt-out" by state of national health insurance. Go ahead and make my day.

[Kalyke]

6. Sure... let all us liberal female Southerners just die.

:eyes:

When is DU going to learn that in order to convert people, one should talk WITH them, not AT them?

[Maine-ah]

3. I wonder if any of the rates have something to do with the fact

that many older people from the north retire to the south....aka snowbirds.

[TicketyBoo]

4. I wonder if

southern cooking has something to do with it, as well as the possibility that people further north may have a higher metabolism due to colder weather.

[watrwefitinfor]

5. Coca Cola. Pepsi. RC Coca Cola. Orange Crush.

Doctor Pepper. Mountain Dew!

Folks down here can't seem to live without 'em. And ALL are full of High Fructose Corn Syrup now.

My 40 something year old family member was diagnosed as diabetic two years ago. Dr. told him he couldn't live without insulin. He finally quit drinking the Pepsi, and within two weeks his blood sugar was normal. Has been ever since.

Wat

[Kalyke]

7. Most of those drinks were invented in the South.

They've been here longer than anywhere else.

That said, I was born and raised in the South and, with the exception of fried chicken and scratch biscuits, I hate Southern food.

I eat like I'm from the Middle East: no pork, lots of spices, fresh veggies, etc.

[TicketyBoo]

11. Soft drinks may have been invented down there

but they're pretty much de rigueur all across the country, and, indeed, around the world.

I don't think that soft drinks are the explanation for the predominance of diabetes in the South.

I've wondered about here on the prairie. We seem to have more than our share of obesity. Our pioneer ancestors had to have a pretty low metabolism. If you took a lot of food to live, you didn't make it through a harsh winter out here. Our great-grandmothers developed high-calorie (and delicious) meals and desserts to keep meat on their hard-working men's bones. Now, we don't have the physical work that people once did. Even farmers use a tractor to plow the field instead of walking behind a mule team. Yet, those high-cal recipes have been handed down to us. Those of us who have ancestral roots here on the prairie likely have inherited a low metabolic rate. And, of course, we, too, have McDonald's and Pizza Hut right down on the corner, too. Easy, fast, and cheap.

It's human nature to eat when food is available. No easy answers.

[Kalyke]

9. Not really.

Most people don't have time to cook all those rich Southern foods anymore.

Our biggest problem here is low wages and fast food. Foods that are the least healthy for us are also the cheapest.

And one's metabolism is an individual thing. Sure, you can boost it with diet and exercise, but one's natural metabolism is determined genetically. Location has little to do with it. For example, think of all those large (obese) Soviet citizens who live in the frozen tundra.

[raccoon]

8. I wonder if hot climate causes diabetes, and if one lives in a cooler climate, one

is less likely to develop it? :silly:

[TicketyBoo]

12. I was thinking that

you may burn more calories in northern states?

But genetics is involved, too.

[SidneyCarton]

10. Vermont huh? Gotta be the maple syrup.

[berni_mccoy]

14. That or easy access to Ben and Jerry's.

[berni_mccoy]

13. Assuming Type-2? I wish to hell these reporters would be specific. Type-1 and Type-2 are completely

different diseases. Based on the info in the article, it sounds like type-2. But since it doesn't distinguish, the reader can't be sure.

Type-1 is an auto-immune disorder that kills the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. There is no cure for it and no amount of diet or exercise can restore insulin producing functionality of the pancreas.