A new Web site for diabetes research
Diabetes is moving from disease to public-health menace in terms of its scale. But a cure remains elusive.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, through its Diabetes Research Center, is researching diabetes on a number of fronts. To better share information on those efforts with the public, it has created a Web site.
“Diabetes mellitus is the pandemic of the new millennium,” Donald W. Bowden, Ph.D., director of the Diabetes Research Center, said in a news release. "It can be a devastating disease, affecting the heart, kidneys, eyes, nerves and brain. Our scientists and physicians are tackling diabetes from every angle looking for solutions.”
In diabetes, the body either fails to produce enough insulin or fails to properly use it to metabolize blood sugar. Insulin is a hormone that is essential to convert sugar from food into energy.
Almost 8 percent of Americans have diabetes, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, and their risk of death is twice that of comparable Americans without the disease.
