The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published a study that sought to find out the prevalence of diabetes among U.S. veterans.
Did you know U.S. veterans are more likely to have type 2 diabetes than the U.S. adult general population? This has to do with a higher rate of obesity in U.S. veterans, according the study authors. Veterans comprise 9% of the civilian U.S. population and of a quarter of the patients under the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has diabetes.
Taking data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005 through 2014 researchers used a stratified multistage probability sampling approach to get representative samples from D.C. and all the 50 states in order to get a better idea of how many veterans live with diabetes.
They defined diabetes in a participant if they had one or more of the following: A1c of 6.5% or higher, fasting plasma glucose of 126 mg/dL (7 mmol/L) or higher, a 2-hour plasma glucose of 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) or higher, or a diagnosis of diabetes by a physician or other health care provider. If someone had none of those conditions they were defined as not having diabetes. Any individual with a BMI of 30 or higher was defined as obese.
Researchers included demographic variables of age, sex, and race/ethnicity (white, African American, Hispanic, and other race) and accounted for poverty and education levels, too.
Poverty and Education are Big Factors
Their analyses revealed that diabetes was more prevalent among veterans aged 65 years ore older, among males, and among those with less than 12 years of education and among those whose annual income level was below the 100% federal poverty levels.
The highest prevalence of obesity was seen in veterans between 45 and 64 years, males, veterans with less than 12 years of education and those living below 100% federal poverty level.
The highest prevalence of diabetes and obesity was seen in Hispanic veterans.
Poverty and limited education were highly linked to greater odds of having diabetes.
They concluded that “The overall prevalence of diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes was 20.5% and 3.4%, respectively, and increased from 15.5% in 2005–2006 to 20.5% in 2013–2014 (P = .04),” and that “Effective prevention and intervention approaches are needed to lower diabetes prevalence among US veterans and ultimately improve their health status.”