Do you know 20.8 million children and adults in the United States are diabetic?
This adds up to 7 percent of the population. To add to the crisis, of them an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed, but unfortunately, 6.2 million people, ie. nearly one-third are not even aware that they are living with the disease!
What eventually is fearful are the gruesome aftereffects of the uncontrolled disease - i.e African Americans suffering from type 1 diabetes are vulnerable to ‘loss of vision!’ With so many people affected by diabetes, you can well imagine the consequence the United States is awaiting!
If the blood sugar levels are not properly controlled, ‘losing vision’ becomes a very powerful risk factor. This study, perhaps, is the first to find the rate of visual impairments among a large group of African Americans.
Besides, poor control over blood sugar levels, older age, high protein levels in the urine (a symptom of kidney disease), as well as a diabetic retinopathy — a degenerative disease of the retina -were found to be independent and significant predictors of vision loss!
So, with a poor control over blood sugar being the key to the foreseen crisis, African Americans as a whole need to take initiatives in improving glucose control to see a vision loss-free nation in the coming decades.
