Nationally, the incidence of diabetes is frightening—it’s rising dramatically and is considered by the
National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control to be “epidemic.”
- 23.6 million Americans have diabetes—7.8 percent of the US population. Of these, 5.7 million people don’t know they have the disease.
- Each year, about 1.6 million people ages 20 or older are diagnosed with diabetes. That’s more than 4,000 new cases per day.
- As of 2007, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes increased more than one thousand percent, from 1.5 million in 1958 to 17.9 million in 2007.
- Approximately 762,000 Pennsylvania adults have been diagnosed with diabetes.