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Diabetes? No Problema! by Sheri Colberg PhD, and Leonel Villa-Caballero, MD, PhD

by Dr. Sheri Colberg, and Leonel Villa-Caballero, MD, PhD

Copyright © 2009 by Da Capo Press.

Provided with permission by Da Capo Press. All rights reserved.

For more information or to order this book, visit http://www.perseusbooks.com.

Introduction: Why Latinos Need to Take on the Diabetes Problema Now
Read this excerpt in Spanish

The latest findings about who has and who will get diabetes are alarming. At last estimate in 2007, almost 24 million people in the United States already had diabetes, and a quarter of them had no idea that they did. A conservative estimate of the number of diabetic Americans by the year 2030 is over 30 million, but it's likely to turn out to be much higher than that. Currently over two and a half million Latinos (about 10 percent of the people afflicted with diabetes in the U.S.) are believed to have diabetes as well. A child born in the new millennium is estimated to have a one in three chance of developing diabetes at some point; for certain ethnic minorities, the risk is closer to one in two. Unfortunately Hispanics fall into the second risk category.

How do you know if you're considered Latino, Hispanic, or both?
How do you know if your ethnic group is Latino, Hispanic, or both? By definition, ethnic groups are classified according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background. According to that definition, Hispanics are people of Latin American descent living in the United States, particularly those with origins in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, or other Central or South American countries. Latinos are individuals of Latin American descent whose ancestors came from any of the countries south of the United States. Confused about the difference? So are we. Apparently the term "Hispanic" was created by the U.S. federal government in the early 1970s in an attempt to provide a common denominator to a large but diverse population with connections to the Spanish language and a culture from a Spanish-speaking country. "Latino" is becoming more accepted within this minority group itself, but in this book we will use the two terms interchangeably to cover everyone. Latinos of any race now comprise America's largest minority group (slightly edging out African Americans) and remain the fastest-growing segment of the population. As of the 2000 census, more than 44 million Latinos were living in the United States, accounting for almost 15 percent of the total population, and they are expected to comprise 30 percent of Americans by the middle of this century. A diverse and heterogeneous group, we Latinos share a common ancestry, language, and culture, even with a mix of European, African, Asian, and Native American blood.