Diabetes Statistics for African Americans

HAT TIP:
American Diabetes Association

Approximately 2.7 million or 11.4% of all African Americans aged 20 years or older have diabetes. However, one-third of them do not know it.

The most life-threatening consequences of diabetes are heart disease and stroke, which strike people with diabetes more than twice as often as they do others.
Adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates 2 to 4 times higher than those without diabetes. African Americans with diabetes are at increased risk
for heart disease, stroke and other macrovascular complications. Other complications of diabetes include blindness, kidney disease, and amputations.

Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the United States, and it has no cure. The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2002 was estimated to be
$132 billion, or one out of every 10 health care dollars spent in the United States.

Prevalence

List of 3 items
• African Americans are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Latino whites.
• 25% of African Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.
• One in four African American women over 55 years of age has diabetes.

African Americans and diabetes-related complications

African Americans experience higher rates of at least four serious complications of diabetes: cardiovascular disease, blindness, amputation and end stage
renal disease (kidney failure).
List of 4 items
• Heart disease strikes people with diabetes more than twice as often as it strikes people without diabetes. People with diabetes are five times more likely
to suffer strokes and once having had a stroke, are two to four times as likely to have a recurrence. Deaths from heart disease in women with diabetes
have increased 23% over the past 30 years compared to a 27% decrease in women without diabetes. Deaths from heart disease in men with diabetes have decreased
by only 13% compared to a 36% decrease in men without diabetes.

• Diabetic retinopathyis a term used for all abnormalities of the small blood vessels of the retina caused by diabetes, such as weakening of blood vessel
walls or leakage from blood vessels. African Americans are twice as likely to suffer from diabetes-related blindness.

• Diabetes is the most frequent cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations. The risk of a leg amputation is 15 to 40 times greater for a person with
diabetes. More than 60% of nontraumatic lower-limb amputations in the U.S. occur among people with diabetes. Each year, 82,000 people lose their foot or
leg to diabetes. Among people with diabetes, African Americans are 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to suffer from lower limb amputations.

• Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, accounting for 43% of new cases. Ten to 21% of all people with diabetes develop kidney disease. In 2000,
41,046 people with diabetes initiated treatment for kidney failure, and 129,183 people with diabetes underwent dialysis or kidney transplantation. African
Americans with diabetes are 2.6 to 5.6 times more likely to suffer from kidney disease.
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