Diabetes management actually worsened in the past 10 years," Dr. Jaime Davidson, a diabetes expert at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, told a news conference.
"We have the tools but we are not doing better." The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and the American College of Endocrinologists commissioned a survey of 157,000 people with type-2, or so-called adult-onset diabetes.
They looked at a blood sugar reading called A1C, and found 67 percent of the patients did not have an adequate A1C levels. Surgeon-General Dr. Richard Carmona said 40 percent of Americans aged 40 to 74 now have pre-diabetes.
They still have a chance to prevent diabetes itself if they begin to exercise and eat more healthily. "We must do something about this now," Carmona said. "Every single year we add 1.2 million Americans with this problem," Davidson said. "It cost us in 2002 about $132 billion."
