Many Asian-Americans, Hispanics undiagnosed.

• Position: Diabetes

More than half of Asian-Americans and nearly half of Hispanic-Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga. Additionally, prevalence of diabetes for all American adults went up, from nearly 10% to more than 12% since 1988. Diabetes prevalence--how common the condition is--rose in every age, sex, level of education, income, and ethnic and racial subgroup, although the proportion of people with diabetes that was undiagnosed decreased 23%. The statistics account for age differences across the surveys.

Using newly available data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers were able to quantify diabetes prevalence for Asian-Americans for the first time and found that they have the highest proportion of diabetes that is undiagnosed among all ethnic and racial subgroups studied, at 51%. Diabetes also is common in Asian-Americans, at 21%. Hispanics have the highest prevalence of diabetes, at nearly 23%, with 49% of that undiagnosed.

One difference between Asian-Americans and the other groups studied is that Asian-Americans often develop type 2 diabetes at a lower body mass index. The data shows...