We just posted the other day that all emplloyers should know as much as possible about diabetes and its effect on the workplace under the Americans With Disabilities Act (the “ADA”), and we cited an article printed in Law.com entitled “Diabetes on the Rise: What Employers Need To Know To Avoid Claims.”

We have now read in the The Wall Street Journal of a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which has found that “[a]fter doubling over nearly two decades, rates of diabetes in the U.S. may be leveling off.”  Good news.

So is “diabetes on the rise” or “leveling off?”  Or can it be both?

The CDC study “found that rates of the disease more than doubled from 1990 to 2008. That was fueled in part by the obesity epidemic,” and that “[t]he aging of the population and growth of Hispanic and other populations at increased risk for the disease also played a role.”

“One major reason for the change appears to be a plateauing of obesity rates … More than one-third of adults, 35%, were obese in 2011 and 2012, a rate that is roughly unchanged from 2003-04.”

If the article in Law.com which we cited the other day was based upon the same CDC study reported in the WSJ, it seems that it omitted the optimistic news that rates of diabetes in the U.S. may be “leveling off.”

Readers are referred to both articles, and the CDC study (which we have not yet read), to determine the latest statistics on diabetes.   In any event, the premise and warning of the article “Diabetes on the Rise: What Employers Need To Know To Avoid Claims” remains:  employers must educate themseleves and learn how to accommodate those who suffer from this catastrophic condition.

See also our posts about diabetes and disability law of July 5, 2014; March 20, 2014; and May 16, 2013.