This week I have a collection of facts about diabetes.  Nothing that could be made into a whole diary on it’s own but are still worth knowing and may help you win bar trivia at your favorite watering hole.

The word diabetes is Greek for siphon and refers to the copious amounts of urine produced in persons with uncontrolled diabetes. The term is attributed is to the famed Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia who practiced in the first century A.D. He believed that diabetes was caused by snakebite. William Cullen (1710-1790), a professor of chemistry and medicine in Scotland, is responsible for adding the term “mellitus” (“sweet” or “honey-like”) because it was discovered that the urine from people with diabetes is sweet with glucose.

One quarter of people who have diabetes are not aware that they have it. Type 2 diabetes occurs most often in people over 45 and the symptoms can be so subtle that it goes undetected.

The earliest recorded mention of a disease that can be recognized as diabetes is found in the Ebers papyrus (1500 B.C.), which includes directions for several mixtures that could “remove the urine, which runs too often.”

Diabetes has been reported in horses, ferrets, and ground squirrels. In environments where animals are liberally fed, diabetes has been reported in dolphins, foxes, and even a hippopotamus.

The word insulin comes from the Latin insula (island) because the hormone is secreted by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas.  Before the discovery of insulin, surgeons rarely operated on diabetic patients with gangrene because the patients typically would not heal and would inevitably die. On occasion, an area of gangrene would auto-amputate, meaning it would dry up and fall off.

Insulin in the 1920s was initially extracted from the pancreas of a cow (bovine) or pig (porcine). Today’s insulins are created in the lab, cultured from bacteria and yeast through recombinant DNA.

Leonard Thompson was the first patient to be treated with insulin in 1922. After receiving injections, his blood sugar dropped.  Thompson showed signs of improved health and went on to live 13 more years taking doses of insulin, eventually dying of pneumonia at age 26.

African-Americans and Hispanics have a much higher rate of Type 2 diabetes than whites. There are 74 cases per 1,000 for African-Americans, 61 cases for Hispanics, and 36 cases for whites.

Approximately one in three African-American women between the ages of 65-74 have diabetes

The death rate among African-Americans with diabetes is 27% higher than among whites with diabetes. Reasons include hereditary, socio-economic issues, higher obesity rates, and lack of available health insurance or insurance coverage.

Diabetes is responsible for over one million amputations each year worldwide.   There are approximately 86,000 lower-limb amputations on diabetics in the United States each year. Rates of amputation are higher among men than women and higher among African-Americans than whites. Experts believe nearly half of all amputations can be prevented with appropriate examinations and education.

Diabetes is the main cause of blindness in individuals aged 20-74 in the United States. Experts emphasize that early detection and treatment could prevent up to 90% of cases of blindness that are related to diabetes.

Diabetes is in the top ten causes of death in the US.  Coming in behind heart disease, cancer, accidents, strokes, and lower respiratory diseases.

Diabetes in the United States alone costs $200 billion annually. This figure includes direct medical costs, such as insulin, amputations, and hospitalizations as well as indirect costs, such as lost productivity, early retirement, and disability.

Every 10 seconds someone dies from diabetes-related causes globally. Every year nearly 3.5 million people in the world die due to diabetes. The death  rate is expected to rise by 25% over the next decade.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that diabetes has reached epidemic proportions and expects that 80% of all new cases of diabetes will appear in developing countries by 2025.

According to the International Diabetes Foundation the top 10 countries with the largest percentage of diabetics are

I’m really quite surprised that the US isn’t in the top ten.