By Jeannette Franks, PhD
My career working with older people began twenty-five years ago at Community Services for the Blind where friends, staff, volunteers, and clients had lost their sight due to complications from diabetes. Some died at an early age. Today we know much more about the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of type 2 diabetes and related vision loss than we did then. Nevertheless, more Americans than ever are afflicted with this disease. It has the fastest-growing death rate in the US and increasingly attacks people of a younger age. According to a recent New York Times article, type 2 diabetes is now epidemic in proportion.
Type 1 diabetes affects 5% of all people with diabetes and occurs mostly in people under the age of 20. In this condition, the pancreas produces insufficient insulin to maintain normal glucose (blood sugar) levels.
This article continues at Type 2 Diabetes in Seniors