National Diabetes Statistics Supporting Podiatric Foot Care

A total of 1.6 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people aged 20 years or older in 2007. Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death listed on U.S. death certificates in 2006. Adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates about two to four times higher than adults without diabetes.

The risk for stroke is two to four times higher among people with diabetes. Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults aged 20 to 74 years. Diabetes is the leading causes of kidney failure, accounting for 44 percent of new cases in 2005.

Almost 30 percent of people with diabetes aged 40 years or older have impaired sensation in the feet, for example, at least one area that lacks feeling. Severe forms of diabetic nerve disease are a major contributing cause of lower extremity amputations. More than 60 percent of nontraumatic lower limb amputations occur in people with diabetes. Persons with diabetes aged 60 years or older are two to three times more likely to report an inability to walk a quarter of a mile, climb stairs, do housework, or use a mobility aid compared with persons without diabetes in the same age group.

Comprehensive foot care programs can reduce amputation rates by 45 to 85 percent. In the Diabetes Prevention Program, a large prevention study of people at high risk for diabetes, lifestyle intervention reduced the development of diabetes by 58 percent over 3 years. The reduction was even greater, 71 percent, among adults aged 60 years or older. These statistics are compelling reasons to seek podiatric care, if diabetes is a risk factor or if you have diabetes.

Theses statistics were taken form the National Diabetes Statistics, 2007 study found at the National Institutes of Health.