Diabetes Care in the U.S. Needs Major Improvement, Report Says

Sometimes I let the not-so-sweet news bum me out. Today is one of those days. Just read about what I just learned.

Diabetes care has improved in the past decade in the U.S., but more advances are still needed, according to a new report by researchers from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HealthDay reports.

The findings appear today in The Annals of Internal Medicine.

Co-author Dr. K. M. Venkat Narayan, chief of the CDC’s Diabetes Epidemiology & Statistics Branch in the Division of Diabetes Translation, notes that the past 10 years, people with diabetes have made substantial improvements at controlling their cholesterol. They’ve also made small improvements in maintaining blood sugar control and yearly eye and foot examinations.

"The discouraging news is that blood pressure control and blood sugar control have remained fairly constant," Dr. Narayan said. "It has not changed in the last five to seven years."

The report concludes: "Diabetes processes of care and intermediate outcomes have improved nationally in the past decade. But 2 in 5 persons with diabetes still have poor LDL cholesterol control, 1 in 3 persons still has poor blood pressure control, and 1 in 5 persons still has poor glycemic control." 

In addition, according to HealthDay, Narayan found that "two in five people with diabetes have poor control of their cholesterol, one in three have poor blood-pressure control, and one in five has poor control of blood-sugar levels."

Please, those of you out there with diabetes, take good care of yourselves. Make some lifestyle changes. Start exercising. And please quit those culprit carbs — or at least, cut back on them. I’m happy to help. Just join my free, online KickSugar group, and we’ll give you support to take those positive steps.