One in 16 privately insured Minnesotans suffers a "loss of good health" due to diabetes, according to a new analysis by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, which adds up to thousands of people who will never reach their full life expectancies or will suffer chronic disabilities.
The analysis, released Tuesday, is based on a new national Blue Cross "health index" tool that estimates the prevalence and cost of diseases in states and counties based on the private insurance claims of 40 million Americans.
The index was created to show just how widespread and how costly certain conditions have become. Diabetes, for example, costs each member of a private Blue Cross health plan nearly $140 per year, the new analysis showed.
Relative to the rest of the nation, depression and anxiety take a bigger toll on Minnesotans, the data showed. But Blue Cross executives said they wanted to use the data to promote a new "Reverse It" campaign against diabetes, because it can be prevented if people are diagnosed at the pre-diabetes stage and if they change their diet and exercise habits.
"Among the one in three Americans that have [pre-diabetes], 90 percent of them are not even aware of it," said Dr. Glenn Pomerantz, Blue Cross Minnesota's chief medical officer. "It really is the best bad news you can get, because you can fix this. It's curable. It's preventable."
Type 2 diabetes is an obesity-related condition in which the body loses the ability to properly convert sugar into energy. Diabetes is diagnosed when someone has a blood sugar level of 126 or higher. Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when a patient's blood sugar is between 100 and 125.
While treatable with insulin injections and medication, diabetes can result in heart disease, stroke or kidney damage.
Adopting a Mediterranean diet rich in nuts and fruits, and adding daily brisk walking, can be enough to move people out of the pre-diabetes category, Pomerantz said.
