Understand Your Risk for Type 2 Diabetes

Dr. Jackness: There are some typical risk factors for people who may develop diabetes, certainly if they're gaining weight and they don't understand why. Minority populations, hispanic populations, African-Americans are at high risk of diabetes, people from East Asia are at very high risk of diabetes even at weights that we consider normal but certainly other populations are at risk too. There are many comorbidities that make someone at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. People who were chronic asthmatics as kids and exposed to drugs called steroids or corticosteroids not anabolic steroids to maybe improve breathing. Other people who take those kinds of medications would be people who received organ transplants are at very high risk of diabetes. People who abused illegal drugs also are at risk of type 2 diabetes. Diabetes knows no age and it seems to be occurring in younger and younger individuals. There are practices in pediatric diabetes, it's happening earlier and earlier and that goes with genetics it tends to happen earlier and subsequent generations, certainly diet, lifestyle play a role, so it's really important how we treat these chronic diseases legitimately with the evidence.