Diabetes a growing problem in United States

The United States, like many other industrialised countries, faces a diabetes epidemic. “Sixteen million Americans—6% of the population—have diabetes, and one third of them don't even realise it; 800 000 will be diagnosed this year. It is the leading cause of blindness, end stage renal disease, and leg amputations and the seventh leading cause of death,” Dr Susan Hershberg Adelman told a seminar in New York last week.

Dr Adelman, a trustee of the American Medical Association, spoke at a meeting jointly sponsored by that association, the American Diabetes Association, and the pharmaceutical firm Aventis.

Worldwide, about 140 million …