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ASHEVILLE — In almost all aspects, Matt Wohleben was a normal child — he was active, liked riding his bicycle and enjoyed hanging out with friends.
But sometime during fourth grade, Wohleben developed odd symptoms of poor health, including constant thirst, the need to urinate often and feeling as if he had the flu.
His mother, a nurse, was afraid she recognized the symptoms and took him to the hospital, where her fears where confirmed.
Despite being only 10 and lacking classic risk factors, Wohleben had diabetes.
“I was probably a little overweight, but not obese,” said Wohleben, now 25 and working as an Asheville police officer. As for family history, “My dad’s dad had it, but that was about it,” he said.
It’s far from the typical case, but as health officials promote Diabetes Alert Day on Tuesday, it is one they would highlight, along with the fact that many problems tied to the nation’s obesity epidemic include more cases of diabetes.
Those cases have more than doubled during the past two decades in some parts of the U.S., including a swath of the Southeast recently labeled by the federal Centers for Disease Control as the “diabetes belt.”
Since 1994, the percentage of people with diabetes grew from less than 3 percent to more than 6 percent in 2008. In North Carolina, it’s risen from around 4.5 percent to more than 9 percent.
In areas of the diabetes belt, 11 percent or more of residents have the debilitating and potentially deadly disease. That includes Cherokee, Graham and Swain counties.
Diabetes, put simply, is when the body manufactures little or no insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy.
Without treatment a person with diabetes can lose limbs, go blind and even die.
Type 1 diabetes is found in children whose bodies make no insulin. It covers about 5 percent of diabetes cases. In Type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, the body doesn’t make enough insulin or the body’s cells ignore the insulin.
About 95 percent of people with diabetes have Type 2.
