U. S. health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the rate of new diabetes cases in the country increased by
90 % in the last decade as a result of increasing obesity and sedentary lifestyles. The numbers may be underestimated as these are from self reported surveys conducted by the CDC and about a third of people with diabetes don't yet know they have the disease.

Experts feel the findings indicate the end of the epidemic is not near. Karen Kirtland, PhD, CDC data analyst said, "This dramatic increase in the number of people with diabetes highlights the increasing burden of diabetes across the country."

Newly diagnosed cases increased by 9.1 per 1000 people annually from 2005 to 2007, an increase from 1995 to 1997’s 4.8 % per 1000. The CDC report used data on 33 states with detailed regional variations and this showed the problem being more acute in the southern states of the country. In the top ten states with the highest diabetes nine are in the south.

Type 2 diabetes the most common form of the disease, makes up 95% of diabetes cases which is linked to obesity. Experts have long maintained that exercising and losing even moderate amount of weight can help prevent diabetes.

"The hope and the message is that if people are kind of changing their lifestyles, doing the things that are good for them, and then hopefully we can reverse the trend," said Kirtland. American Diabetes Association spokesman Matt Petersen said, "Some day we'll see a leveling off of diabetes incidence if the obesity rate levels out. But clearly it hasn't started yet. We won't see the plateau in type 2 diabetes for quite a while."

West Virginia leads the states with the highest diabetes rate of 12.7 new cases for every 1000 residents. The others in the top 10 are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona.

Minnesota has the lowest annual diabetes rate of five per 1000 people, but that is also 67 % higher in the last decade. California has the highest number of new diabetes cases with 208,000 Californians told they had diabetes in 1997.

The study was reported in the Oct. 31 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and Kirtland and colleagues said, "The growth in diabetes prevalence has been concomitant with growth in obesity prevalence."

A study has shown that diabetes risk can be reduced by 58 % in three years by just losing 5 % to 10 % of body fat and doing 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days in a week. Diabetics whose blood sugar levels go too high are at risk of heart attacks, stroke, blindness and kidney damage. The American Diabetes Association said 23.6 million U. S. children and adults have diabetes.