America’s Diabetes Surge (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

If diabetes were an infectious disease, the media would be going crazy over it.  Twenty-nine million American adults affected.  The numbers surging, up another nine percent since 2010.  Terrible risks:  stroke, blindness, kidney failure, amputation.  Cost to the US economy – nearly $250 billion a year.  But diabetes isn’t infectious.  Type 1, just five percent of cases, comes on in childhood.  Type 2 – the big numbers – is practically a lifestyle disease.  Poor diet, obesity, lack of exercise – and millions are at risk.  This hour On Point:  America’s diabetes boom, and what to do about it. /Tom Ashbrook

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/06/18/type-1-diabetes-type-2-artificial-pancreas