One in four Americans with diabetes don’t know they have it

Despite growing numbers of people with diabetes, experts see hopeful signs ahead. 

Scary new diabetes numbers from the Centers for Disease Control came out this week—more than 29 million people in the United States have diabetes and one in four don’t even know they have it. That’s up 12 percent from 2010, when 26 million Americans had the disease.

To try and understand how we’ve arrived at this health crisis and what’s being done to attempt to reverse the trend, we enlisted the help of two local experts on diabetes.

Mark Schutta is medical director of the Penn Rodebaugh Diabetes Center and a practicing physician. He was not surprised by the increased numbers, but he has hope that education and hard work will eventually turn the tide. 

Lifestyle changes and keeping patients engaged in their care is a major aspect of managing diabetes, and Amy Egris, an associate professor at the Jefferson School of Pharmacy, has been participating in a new approach to get patients on board with changes—group appointments. They are part traditional doctor checkup, part lesson, part hanging out and getting to know patients.