Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
On this slide you can see some of the risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus, or some of the factors that are associated with an increased risk of developing the disease, and what you'll note is that some of these are lifestyle factors that can be changed, such as physical inactivity, smoking, but some of these are factors that you can't change; so for example, your family history. Specifically, if a parent or a sibling has had diabetes, you are more likely to get the disease as well. You also see in the list history of gestational diabetes. We'll talk about gestational diabetes on the next slide. It's simply a form of diabetes that occurs during pregnancy. And we also noted that African Americans are at higher risk compared to Caucasian Americans of developing diabetes. So all of these risk factors combined, some of which you can control and change, some of which you are essentially born with, are factors that we want to consider when thinking about whether or not someone will develop diabetes.