Nearly 13% percent of US adults at least 20 years old have diabetes and 40% of them don’t know it, according to a study in Diabetes Care.

And another 30% have pre-diabetes, a condition characterized by mildly abnormal blood sugars and a risk profile not all that much better than the full blown syndrome.

All these numbers are higher than previously thought.

To reach these conclusions, a scientific team lead by the NIDDK’s Catherine Cowie performed a history and physical exam, and then a fasting and 2-h oral glucose tolerance test on a sample of 7,267 people from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The year was 2005-2006.

The team subsequently compared these values with similar data from 1988 and 1994.

 “We’re facing a diabetes epidemic that shows no signs of abating, judging from the number of individuals with pre-diabetes,” Cowie told BurrillReport.
 
Diabetes is the leading cause of amputations, blindness and renal failure in adults, and a prominent cause of cardiac disease and stroke. Pre-diabetes bumps one’s risk of stroke and cardiac disease not to mention developing type 2 diabetes.
 
The elderly and minorities have been hit particularly hard by the epidemic. Nearly a third of US citizens who are at least 65 years old have diabetes. And the incidence of the scourge in both blacks and Mexican-Americans is 70-80% higher than in whites.

Men and women were affected equally. Frighteningly, 16% of youth aged 12-19 years have pre-diabetes.
 
“These findings have grave implications for our health care system, which is already struggling to provide care for millions of diabetes patients,” Griffin Rodgers, the NIDDK director told Burrill.

Young, stupid and naïve was the way Alex Rodriguez described his behavior during his tenure with the Texas Rangers between 2001 and 2003.

The latest A-Bomb from A-Rod was that he used performance enhancing drugs during that particularly prolific part of his career…after adamantly denying this for years.

So now Rodriguez becomes the poster-boy for Major League Baseball’s juicing era; he’s by far the most famous player to admit using performance enhancing substances.

Other players like Mark McGwire, Sammy “Captain Cork” Sosa, Barry Bonds and The Rocket are also widely believed to have juiced, and like A-Rod’s, their denials have become required viewing for YouTubers.

“When I arrived at Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure,” Rodriguez told ESPN reporter Peter Gammons. “I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day.”

“Back then it was a different culture. I wanted to prove I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time. I did take a banned substance, and for that I am very sorry and deeply regretful.”

According to the New York Times, Rodriguez said he didn’t know what he took and emphasized he’s been clean since joining the Yankees before the 2004 season. His positive test dates to 2003, his last with the Rangers.

In keeping with terms of the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the player’s union, testing that year was carried out randomly, was associated with no penalties, and the results were to be kept secret.

All that changed in April, 2004 when the Feds, in hot pursuit of perjury charges against Barry Bonds in the BALCO case, seized the positive urine specimens from 2003. One of those cups contained A-Rods’ urine, which was reportedly glowing in the dark.

Last week the Feds unsealed 200 pages of evidence against Barry Bonds.

They plan to use it in March when the former San Francisco Giants slugger stands trial on charges he perjured himself before a grand jury in the 2003 BALCO case by claiming he never knowingly used steroids.

The documents tie the all-time home run king to 4 positive tests. They also include doping calendars and transcripts of a secretly-taped conversation in which Greg Anderson, Bonds’ longtime trainer and confidant says he injected Bonds with the juice.

Anderson has racked up more than a year behind bars for contempt by famously refusing to testify before that very same grand jury. His obstinance may yet invalidate some parts of the Fed’s case.

Three of the 4 positive tests date to 2000-2001 and were performed at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative. The fourth, a specimen collected by MLB in 2003 showed the designer steroid THG, a synthetic testosterone and clomid, a female fertility drug.

That specimen had come up clean using MLB-sanctioned tests, but it was seized by the Feds a year later and handed over to the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab which found the goods. 

The tape-recorded conversation took place in 2003. It involved Steve Hoskins, a former Bonds business manager, and Anderson. Transcripts reveal Anderson saying he injected Bonds with designer steroids that weren’t detectable at the time.

Hoskins and Bonds had been childhood friends that reconnected when Bonds returned to the Bay area to play Left for the Giants in 1993. They had a spat in 2003 and next thing you know, Hoskins was wearing a wire for the Feds.

In sworn testimony before the BALCO grand jury, Bonds admitted using “the clear” and “the cream,” but claimed he did not know they were laced with performance enhancing substances.