Jerry Silva's body was not designed for life in the early 21st century. A 44-year-old financial analyst from Sherborn, Massachusetts, Silva spends most of his time behind a desk tracking high-tech stocks. It's a life far removed from that of his Mexican forebears, who spent their days hoeing maize fields and fishing near Guadalajara. Silva has more than enough to eat, whereas his ancestors often went hungry. The significance of that difference in lifestyle became painfully apparent last January, when he was diagnosed with diabetes. The disease, closely linked with not eating the right foods and sitting around too much, is beginning to look something like a pandemic as millions of people around the world confront a central irony of the modern world: A lifestyle of abundance can be deadly.
On this planet 194 million people have diabetes, double the number of 25 years ago. In another 25 years the number is expected to double again. But those numbers represent only people who reach such high blood-sugar levels that diagnosis is clear and certain. Recent research suggests that the plague may be many times worse, affecting a much larger group of people who are slowly but surely developing a resistance to insulin in their bodies and who could be categorized as prediabetic. Long before such people are officially diagnosed, their eyesight, their hearts, and other organs come under attack. In this country, there are 41 million known prediabetics and 18 million diabetics, about one in every five Americans.
The tangible consequences of this growing epidemic are staggering. Each year in the United States 40,000 diabetics get kidney disease, up to 24,000 go blind, and 82,000 have amputations—a toe, foot, or leg—because of vascular failure. Recently, researchers have found alarming links between diabetes and neurodegenerative afflictions such as Alzheimer's disease. Diabetes and insulin resistance may cause depression, decreased cognitive function, and harmful alterations in brain structure. Diabetes can cut up to 20 years off the human life span and costs the United States at least $130 billion annually.
