More than 40 million Americans have diabetes, and more than 1 in 4 adults who have it do not know. Behind them is a larger group: more than 2 in 5 U.S. adults have prediabetes, and about 8 in 10 of them are unaware of it.
What goes wrong
Your body breaks most of the food you eat down into sugar (glucose) and releases it into the bloodstream. Rising blood sugar signals the pancreas to release insulin, which works like a key, letting the sugar into the body's cells to be used for energy.
Diabetes is a chronic, long-lasting condition in which the body does not make enough insulin, or cannot use it as well as it should. Either way, too much sugar stays in the blood, and over time that can cause heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.
The three main types
| Type 1 | Type 2 | Gestational | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What happens | Thought to be an autoimmune reaction — the body attacks itself by mistake — that stops insulin being made | The body does not use insulin well and cannot keep blood sugar normal | Develops in pregnancy, in women who have never had diabetes |
| Share of diagnosed cases | about 5–10% | about 90–95% | — |
| Who | Usually diagnosed in children and young adults, but possible at any age | Usually adults, but more and more children, teens and young adults | Pregnant women |
| How it shows | No symptoms early; as it progresses, symptoms can appear suddenly, within weeks or months, and be severe | Develops over many years, often without noticeable symptoms — so people at risk should have their blood sugar tested | Usually goes away after birth, but raises the mother's risk of type 2 later — and the child is more likely to have obesity as a child or teen and type 2 later in life |
| Prevention | No one yet knows how to prevent it, but found early it can be treated to avoid or delay symptoms and complications | Can be prevented or delayed with lifestyle changes | People at risk may be able to prevent it with healthy eating and regular activity |
People with type 1 need to take insulin every day to survive.
Prediabetes: the stage before type 2
With prediabetes, blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet high enough for a type 2 diagnosis. It raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Both prediabetes and type 2 can be prevented by losing weight if you are overweight, eating a healthy diet and getting regular physical activity; CDC's lifestyle change program is built to help people with prediabetes do that.
Living with it
There is no cure yet, but losing weight, eating healthy food and being active can really help. So can taking medicine as prescribed, making and keeping health care appointments, and diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) — ask your doctor to recommend a diabetes educator, or search CDC's Find a DSMES Program list.
The national picture
- Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.
- It is the No. 1 cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations and adult blindness.
- The number of adults diagnosed has more than doubled in the last 20 years.
- It is the most costly health condition in the country: 25% of all health care spending, and $640 billion in 2021.
Sources
Based on "Diabetes Basics," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.cdc.gov
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