Metro

More than 10 percent of NYC’s adults have been diagnosed with diabetes

(Alamy)

(
)

The Big Apple’s appetite for sweet drinks and fattening food is growing deadlier by the year.

A staggering 10.5 percent of New York City adults, or close to 650,000, have been diagnosed with diabetes — more than double the rate of the life-shortening disease a generation ago, officials said yesterday.

And another 230,000 residents are walking around without knowing they have it, according to the city’s Health Department.

Diabetes — which brings increased risk for a witch’s brew of ailments, including heart attack, stroke and kidney failure and boosts the odds of limb amputations — has become an epidemic, the officials warned.

Treating it cost $16.43 billion in New York last year, plus another $5.06 billion in lost productivity and indirect expenditures, according to the American Diabetes Association.

“It’s a major health crisis,” said state Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan).

Obesity, fueled by high-calorie foods and sugary drinks, is the major cause of the diabetes surge, officials said.

It’s the city’s rising rate of diabetes and obesity that prompted Mayor Bloomberg to try to ban the sale of super-sized sugary drinks before that effort was blocked in the courts.

The figures are grim: The Health Department said the most recent numbers for 2011 showed nearly 650,000 adult New Yorkers said they had the disease — an increase of about 200,000 since 2002.

The 10.5 percent figure was the first time the rate has hit double digits. It was just 4.2 percent from 1993 to 1995, and 9.3 percent in 2010.

“What’s most alarming is that more than 200,000 New Yorkers are walking around with this serious disease and don’t even know they’re at risk for blindness, amputations, or even worse — premature death,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley. “We must work to end this crisis.”

Gottfried added, “I think a large part of it is a food industry that has heavily promoted processed food with large amounts of fat and sugar, and that has dramatically changed our eating habits.”

Health Department figures show that Hispanics (14 percent), African-Americans (13.9 percent) and Asians (12.6 percent) were about twice as likely to be diabetic as whites (6.3 percent), and the disease is more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods.

New York’s diabetes rate is well above the national rate of 9.2 percent.

But that could change. The diabetes association said if the national trend continues, one out of every three Americans could have diabetes by 2050.