Diabetes Foot Facts

Prevalence of diabetes

• Total: 23.6 million people – Eight percent of the U.S. population has diabetes.

• Diagnosed: 17.9 million people

• Undiagnosed: 5.7 million people
   

Prevalence of diabetes among people 20 years or older

•   Age 20 years or older: 23.5 million or 10.7 percent of all people in this age group have diabetes.

•   Age 60 years or older: 12.2 million.  Almost 23 percent of all people in this age group have diabetes.

•   Men: 12 million. Close to 11 percent of all men, aged 20 years or older, have diabetes; nearly one third do not know it.

•   Women: 11.5 million. Nearly ten percent of all women aged 20 years or older have diabetes. The prevalence of diabete is at least two to four times higher among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latino American women, than among non-Hispanic white women.

 Prevalence of diabetes by race/ethnicity among people 20 years or older

•  African-Americans: Close to 11.8 percent of all non-Hispanic blacks, aged 20 years or older, have diabetes. On average, non-Hispanic blacks are 1.8 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites of similar age.

• Hispanic/Latino-Americans: Nearly eleven percent of Hispanic/Latino Americans aged 20 years or older have diabetes. Mexican Americans, the largest Hispanic/Latino subgroup, are 1.7 times as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.

• Caucasian-Americans: Close to 7 percent of all non-Hispanic whites aged 20 years or older have diabetes.

Complications of diabetes:

Amputations

About 60-70 percent of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of diabetic nerve damage (which often includes impaired sensation or pain in the feet or hands, slowed digestion of food in the stomach, etc.) Severe forms of diabetic nerve damage can lead to lower-extremity amputations.

• More than 60 percent of non-traumatic lower-limb amputations in the United States occur among people with diabetes. After an amputation, the chance of another amputation within 3 to 5 years is as high as 50 percent, according to the National Diabetes Education Program.

• The rate of amputation for people with diabetes is 10 times higher than for people without diabetes.

Preventing Diabetes Complications

• A podiatric physician, a doctor focusing on the treatment of diabetic foot and ankle maladies, plays an integral role in a diabetes management team. Diabetes can affect many parts of the body and can lead to serious complications such as blindness, kidney damage, and lower-limb amputations. Working together, people with diabetes and their health care providers, such as a podiatric physician, can reduce the occurrence of these and other diabetes complications.

• Comprehensive foot care programs can reduce amputation rates by 45 percent to 85 percent.

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