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The rate of diagnosed diabetes rose more than 90% among adults from 1997 to 2007, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In data from 33 states, cases rose from 4.8 per 1,000 people to 9.1 per 1,000, the CDC said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

On the low end, Minnesota saw an increase of five cases per 1,000 people. On the high end, West Virginia had an increase of 12.7 per 1,000 residents. The highest incidence of diabetes, after adjustments, is in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

In a related matter, the American Medical Association said that a progressively more complex and expensive array of treatments for type 2 diabetes is being prescribed to an increasing number of adults,

G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS, of the University of Chicago Hospitals and a Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Scholar, documented a shift in prescribed medications, away from sulfonylurea drugs to new ones such as biguanides and glitazones. That accounted for a rise in diabetes drug prescription costs to an average of $76 each in 2007 from $56 in 2001. Overall diabetes medication spending rose to $12.7 billion in 2007 from $6.7 billion in 2001, Alexander said.

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