Want To Make A Killing In The Stock Market? Here’s How.

Want to make a bundle of money in the stock market?  It’s simple: invest in companies that treat diabetes.  Better yet, make sure you and your family members never get diabetes.

Let’s start with some facts about diabetes from the American Diabetes Association: today, 23.6 million people in the United States have diabetes, or roughly 7.8% of the population.  Of those with diabetes, 5.7 million are estimated to have undiagnosed diabetes, which means that they are not even aware that they have the disease.  There are 1.6 million new cases of diabetes every year in the United States and of those age 60 and older, 23.1% of the population has diabetes in this age group.

It gets even worse: there are 57 million people today with “prediabetes”.  If your blood glucose levels are higher than normal, you have what is known as prediabetes.  There are two tests that check for prediabetes: the fasting plasma glucose test (FPG) and the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). If your blood glucose level is abnormal following the FPG and/or the OGTT, you have what is known as prediabetes.  For the FPG, prediabetes is a score between 100 and 126 and for the OGTT, prediabetes is a score between 140 and 200.

The American Diabetes Association estimates that there will be 60 million people suffering from diabetes in ten years.  This is a staggering number!

Why should you be concerned about your risk for diabetes?  Take a look at these facts: Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in 2006 (most recent year that statistics are available) and diabetes was a contributing factor in the deaths of 233,619 in 2005.

Scared yet?  There’s more: Adults with diabetes have heart disease rates that are two to four times higher than adults without diabetes.  The risk of a stroke is two to four times higher among people with diabetes and 75% of adults with diabetes have high blood pressure.  That’s not enough?  Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness among adults and diabetic retinopathy causes 12,000 to 24,000 new cases of blindness each year.  60% to 70% of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of nervous system failure and diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, accounting for 44% of new cases.  More than 60% of non-traumatic lower limb amputations occur in people with diabetes and in 2004, 71,000 lower limb amputations were performed in people with diabetes.

The total cost of diabetes in 2007 was $174 billion with $116 billion for direct medical care.  Talk about a way of reducing the national deficit fast.

Here’s the sad part of these statistics: diabetes is completely preventable in 90% of all cases. Yes, that’s right, we are bringing this nightmare on ourselves.

What can you do to prevent diabetes? Watch your weight closely.  Obesity is the #1 cause of diabetes.  In addition to watching your weight, ask your doctor for the tests to check for prediabetes.  If you have abnormal blood glucose levels, make changes in your eating habits that will bring your levels down.

Diabetes is not a death sentence.  With good eating habits, you can reduce your risk for diabetes, which in turn will reduce your risk for a multitude of health conditions, such as high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, peripheral vascular disease, and others.

If you choose to ignore your risk for diabetes, you can always invest in companies that treat diabetes and make a killing in the stock market.