After 25 years of rising steadily, the number of new U.S. diabetes cases dropped by about 20 percent over six years, from 1.7 million new cases in 2008 to 1.4 million in 2014, according to a new analysis by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It seems pretty clear that incidence rates have now actually started to drop," CDC diabetes expert Edward Gregg tells The New York Times. "Initially it was a little surprising because I had become so used to seeing increases everywhere we looked."
Health officials aren't sure if the drop in new cases is the result of programs aimed at fighting diabetes — which still afflicts about 10 percent of U.S. adults — or if the diabetes epidemic has naturally peaked, or if people are changing their diets and exercising after watching friends and relatives go blind or have limbs amputated because of the disease. Whatever the cause, the success isn't evenly spread among Americas. The new diabetes rate is still flat among the less-educated as well as black and Latino populations, while it is dropping among whites and those with more education. Read more about the diabetes findings at The New York Times.
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