In this article we will present the 10 states with the lowest diabetes rates in America. Click to skip ahead and see the top 5 states with the lowest diabetes rates in America.
Diabetes is one of the biggest issues facing the modern world. While it has been present for a long time, the severity and reach of the disease was never even close to what it is now. Rates have doubled in many countries across the world in just the last 15-25 years, costing over a million lives each year and several billion dollars in medical expenses.
So what exactly is diabetes and how did we get into this situation? Diabetes is a disease where your sugar level, or blood glucose level is much higher than normal. We all have a hormone called insulin which helps transport glucose to cells and break it down for energy. This is the natural way of things, which diabetes subverts. There are two main types of diabetes, type 1, which is not very common, and where the body does not create insulin, and type 2, which is much more prevalent, where the body does not use insulin properly.
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So what’s wrong with a little bit of sugar, you ask? After all, who of us haven’t had a sugar rush. The difference is, that is a short term phenomenon. Having higher blood glucose levels in the long term could and often does result in serious issues for your body, damaging various organs such as eyes and kidney, causing heart attacks and even death is not a distant outcome of this disease. The worst part is, many people do not even know that they have diabetes and so do not take preventive actions which could help mitigate the symptoms.
Moving on to how the danger of diabetes slowly increased over the years, obesity is one of the primary issues here. Diabetes and obesity have a direct link, and obese and overweight people have the greatest chance of being afflicted with the disease. Worldwide, obesity has tripled in just the last 40-50 years, a sad indictment of where we are, as bad choices in nutrition and lack of exercise have led people to gaining extreme weight. This is why we also see a corresponding increase of nearly 4 times in diabetes as well, from 122 million to over 400 million in the last 40 years. You can learn more about this if you visit the 11 countries with the highest diabetes rates in the world. While the same is true for the US, with over 30 million diabetes patients in the country, some states have done well in fighting back, and these are the states we will focus on. On the other hand you can also take a look at the 15 states with the highest rates of diabetes in the US. The data for states with lowest diabetes rates has been picked from the CDC, so let’s take a look at our rankings, starting with number 10:
10. Nebraska: 8%
Nebraska’s diabetes rate is much lower than the US median diabetes rate, showcasing efforts by the state to fight the disease and ensure its population has a much better chance at staying healthy than most other states.
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9. Utah: 7.7%
The donation a few years ago of over $5 million dollars to fight diabetes is just one of many ways that the states has been able to batten down the hatches and prevail much better than other states.
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8. Alaska: 7.7%
Alaskan Natives have a higher threshold against diabetes which is one of the reasons why it has done well and the prevalence of the disease in the state is low.
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7. New Hampshire: 7.7%
Even though there’s an increasing trend of diabetes in New Hampshire, it is still much lower than the national average, and hence part of the states with the lowest rates of diabetes in U.S.
6. Wyoming: 7.6%
Wyoming had one of the lowest rates in the US even back in 1996 at just over 3%, and while it has increased, it’s still fared much better than most other places not just in the US but globally as well.
Click to continue reading and see the top 5 states with the lowest diabetes rates in America.
Disclosure: 10 States with the Lowest Diabetes Rates in America is originally published at Insider Monkey.
