Non–insulin-dependent diabetes is epidemic in the United States. The potentially deadly disorder afflicts some 16 million people in this country, accounting for 95 percent of all diabetes. The number of people with non–insulin-dependent diabetes is 50 percent greater today than it was just a decade ago. Cardiovascular complications account for half of all deaths among people with this type of diabetes, commonly called type 2, and the disorder is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and amputations in the United States.
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