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Paula Yutzy, RN, BSPA, CDE, discusses diabetes education with her patients at Mercy.

Paula Yutzy, RN, BSPA, CDE, Director of Diabetes Education at Mercy, Reminds Patients, Staff That Tuesday, March 27th is American Diabetes Alert Day

Marylanders are Urged to Take the American Diabetes Risk Test to Determine Their Risk of Type II Diabetes

The American Diabetes Association is sounding the alert about American Diabetes Alert® Day, March 27th. American Diabetes Alert Day is a one-day call to action to encourage those at risk for developing type 2 diabetes or those with loved ones at risk to take the American Diabetes Risk Test and, if they score high, to schedule an appointment to see their doctor.

The American Diabetes Risk Test, in English, Spanish or Chinese, is available by calling the Association toll-free at 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383). pre-diabetes, which puts them at the greatest risk for developing type 2 diabetes unless they make major lifestyle changes.

Among the primary risk factors for type 2 diabetes are being overweight, sedentary, over the age of 45 and having a family history of diabetes. African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders are at an increased risk, as are women who have had babies weighing more than nine pounds at birth.

Furthermore, the CDC predicts that one in three boys and two in five girls who were born in 2000 in the U.S. will become diabetic. The likelihood for African American and Hispanic children is even higher – nearly 50 percent of them will develop diabetes in their lifetime. In Maryland alone, nearly 300,000 people have diabetes; an estimated one third of the population remains undiagnosed.

Diabetes costs the state almost $4 million per year. In Baltimore City, nearly 90,000 residents have diabetes at a cost to the city of approximately $1.2 billion annually.

"The World Health Organization had estimated a 39 percent increase in the number of diabetes cases between 2000 and 2030. Now a study of cases in Canada recently published ni the medical journal, The Lancet, indicates that this may be an UNDERestimate. It's another indication of the huge problem diabetes has becoming--it is an epidemic," said Paula Yutzy, Director of Diabetes Education, the Diabetes Center at Mercy.

In just 10 years, the disease's prevalence in Canada rose by 69 percent to nearly nine out of 100 people, according to analysis of local medical databases done by Lorraine Lipscombe of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto and colleagues. The researchers urged more attention to obesity.

At least 171 million people have diabetes worldwide, and the number will climb to 366 million by 2030, WHO estimates. The chronic disease can lead to blindness, heart disease, kidney damage and death. Governments, which are already struggling to pay health costs for citizens, may have to spend more or cut benefits for other conditions. Diabetes comes from a person's inability to make enough, or any, insulin, a hormone that prevents sugar from accumulating in the blood. 

WHO estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide were overweight in 2005 and at least 400 million were obese, with the numbers expected to climb to 2.3 billion and 700 million, respectively, by 2015. It attributed the rise to a shift to foods rich in fat and sugar and to a decline in physical activity.