Transcripts

Bill of Health - Diabetes: The Silent Killer

SUSIE GHARIB: It has been described as a quiet epidemic. Diabetes is a disease that 20 million Americans have and millions of them aren`t even aware of it. As Jeff Yastine reports in this week`s "bill of health," authorities are ramping up education efforts in an effort to stem that tide.

JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Doctors say the most frightening thing these days about diabetes is who`s getting diagnosed with it: more and more children. But there is help in the way of greater efforts at education and also technology for helping those who already have the disease.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have already talked about the six nutrients, proteins, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water.

YASTINE: It`s not just the three "R`s" they`re teaching in school these days. Food education is becoming more commonplace as well. The reason: the growing problem of children with diabetes. By some estimates, 200,000 American kids are classified as diabetic, many with the more dangerous type-2 form of the disease.

DR. PAUL JELLINGER, PAST PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGISTS: It`s well recognized that there is an epidemic of Type II diabetes and we`re seeing many more patients with diabetes and pre-diabetes diagnosed at every age level. In fact, one of the more startling findings is that Type II is appearing now in adolescents and children when in decades past, it was a disease almost exclusively of the adult over 50.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being overweight can be one of the major risk factors for diabetes.

YASTINE: Researchers believe the increase in diabetes has gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity seen among adults and children over the past decade. The types of food people eat and their sedentary lifestyles bear part of the blame. In response, many hospitals have created diabetes and nutrition centers, like this one at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. Here, education about the disease and how to manage it are key.

JELLINGER: There`s no disease where education is more important than diabetes because no physician has enough time or no professional educator has enough time for a diabetic. They have to live with their disease every minute of the day.

YASTINE: Doctors say technology, in the way of easy to use blood sugar monitoring devices, as well as new forms of insulin, are making diabetes a more manageable disease. But they say it will take increasing amounts of education to keep more adults and children from becoming diabetic in the first place. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, for bill of health.