Diabetes Can Shorten Life By 6 Years

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that a diabetic reaching the age of 50 is likely to die 6 years earlier than someone who is not diabetic. The Los Angeles Times reports:

A 50-year-old with Type 2 diabetes will lose an average of six years of life as a result of the disease, only one less than would be lost by a long-term smoker of the same age, researchers reported Wednesday.

He or she is more than twice as likely to die of cardiovascular disease as someone without diabetes and 25% more likely to die of cancer, according to the report, an international study of more than 820,000 people published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

People with Type 2 diabetes are also more likely to die from kidney disease, liver disease, pneumonia, infectious diseases and even intentional self-harm, according to the study, which was conducted by the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration, based at the University of Cambridge in England.

As we’ve written, about half the U.S. will be diabetic by 2020 and 1 out of 3 people in this country is currently pre-diabetic, so this study is a huge deal. It means that my tíos, your parents and our friends will die earlier because of a disease that tends to hit Latinos and poor people especially hard.

There’s really not a whole lot you can do whether you already have diabetes, or like me are predisposed to it, other than live as healthy a life as you can. Diabetes can be reversed if you take care of yourself, you can be diabetic and live without insulin if you watch what you eat and exercise. It’s too late for my loved ones to turn back time and miraculously never have acquired diabetes, but for myself and my friends, I’m hoping health will prevail and we’ll be able to avoid this terrible disease.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD