Americans have constant access to food. This recent development is one that is having a disastrous effect on our health. Our ability to metabolize calories has not changed, and the result has been a skyrocketing rate of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
This unit is of particular relevance to New Haven, Connecticut students. New Haven is a city of 124,000 whose population lives with the same diseases commonly found in the poor, inner cities of today's United States. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, HIV, and other diseases are present at a disproportionately higher rate in this population. Nationally, diabetes afflicts over 20 million people, or 7% of the U.S. population, and it kills 225,000 annually - a 22 percent increase since 1990. (2) The literature frequently uses the word "epidemic" to describe obesity and the concurrent spread of type 2 diabetes. (3)
Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Diabetes increases the risk of stroke and heart attack. When compared to an individual of the same age without diabetes, the overall chance of dying doubles.
As with many diseases, diabetes seems to have a genetic "susceptibility" component.
African Americans are 1.8 times more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to have diabetes and Hispanics are 1.7 times as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to have diabetes. This is particularly disturbing when considering that over 85% of New Haven's students are at elevated risk of becoming diabetic: New Haven had a total student enrollment of 20,759 in the 2005/2006 school year. Of these students, African Americans represented 54.82%, or 11,380 students, and Hispanics represented 30.95%, or 6,425 students. (4)