New Diabetes-Related Statistics in the United States

Pharmacy Times spoke with Susan Cornell, PharmD, Associate Director, OEE at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy, about her session at McKesson ideaShare 2022, titled "Diabetes Updates, Guidelines, and Trends."

Cornell: Yeah, absolutely, you know, it is very scary that we're seeing statistics for health care, as common health care conditions start to skyrocket. So you know, looking solely at diabetes, just at diabetes. In the past few years, we've seen an uptick. So previously, before the pandemic, we had 34 million people with diabetes, and 86 million with prediabetes. Now, earlier this year, in February of this year, as a matter of fact, the new statistics came out where we're at now 37 million with diabetes and 96 million with prediabetes. And the thing is prediabetes, we can prevent those folks from going to full blown diabetes, just with some interventions. And you know, so that's why I'm really happy to be here. Because pharmacists are a key team player in on the diabetes care team, and especially community pharmacist, you know, community pharmacist interact with people more often than other health care providers, and have, even if it's 30 seconds, it's 30 seconds of quality time to make an intervention or make a difference. So, if we can prevent these numbers from growing, I think that would be great. And probably the biggest thing to start to look at, too, is in the terms of that prediabetes. And their prevention mode. There's a lot of things coming down the pipeline, but probably one of the biggest things right now, we're concerned about post COVID-19 pandemic, is the obesity factor. And, you know, there's a lot of debate, and I'll be honest, just coming back from the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions- which do you treat first: the obesity or the diabetes? And, you know, it's a very significant question. And we have differences of opinions, because if we can't reduce the obesity, you're probably not going to be able to reduce the diabetes. And so again, we don't have the statistics on obesity yet, I'm cautiously (or I'm actually…I shouldn't say cautious- I'm a little bit afraid) to see what those are going to be. Because, you know, prior to the pandemic, this country was 42% obese- that's obese, not overweight. 42% obese. Post pandemic, I have no clue what that number is going to look like. So that's where there's the worry is and really, we have to look no longer at just diabetes. So this goes to the statistics is looking beyond just sugar, weight, cardiovascular issues, renal issues, you know, now we're even talking fatty liver. So, there's so much more than just sugar and that's what I'm here to talk about.