Diabetes rate alarms state health officials

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Diabetes has moved up one spot to become Missouri's fourth-leading killer of people ages 55 to 64, state health officials said in announcing plans to bolster education about the disease.

The latest figures, announced Friday, only count incidents in which diabetes was listed as a primary cause of death, said Jo Anderson, the Missouri Diabetes Control Program's manager. The disease often is an underlying contributor to deaths from heart disease, pneumonia and flu, she said.

Diabetes also contributes to stroke, kidney failure, high blood pressure, blindness and amputations.

About one in every 15 adults -- about 7 percent -- in Missouri has diabetes, although one-third of them don't know it, Anderson said.

The disease costs the state more than $2 billion, causes more than 121,000 hospitalizations and kills almost 4,700 people each year.

Diabetes is Missouri's fifth-leading killer of people ages 45 to 54 and 75 to 84.

People over 65, obese people, blacks and Hispanics are particularly susceptible. Nationally, 8.3 percent of blacks are diabetics; in Missouri, about 13.2 percent of blacks have the disease.

On Friday in Columbia, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services officials announced a diabetes-education plan that would focus on St. Louis, Kansas City and the Bootheel, eventually expanding by 2007 to cover the rest of Missouri.

Those areas were chosen because they have more people, greater minority populations and higher diabetes occurrences, Anderson said.

Under the plan, people will be encouraged to exercise more, eat more fruits and vegetables, lose weight, quit smoking and improve health habits.

Diabetes-management programs for people who already have the disease will be bolstered. Regular checks of blood sugar levels, yearly foot and eye exams, an increase in exercise and better diets can help pare many of diabetes complications, Anderson said.