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<p>Begin on the sixth floor, third room from the end, swathed in fluorescence:
a 60-year-old woman was having two toes sawed off. One floor up, corner room:
a middle-aged man sprawled, recuperating from a <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/transplants/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival health news about Transplants.">kidney transplant</a>.
Next door: nerve damage. Eighth floor, first room to the left: stroke. Two
doors down: more toes being removed. Next room: a flawed </p>
<p>As always, the beds at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx were filled
with a universe of afflictions. In truth, these assorted burdens were all
the work of a single illness: <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/diabetes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival health news about Diabetes.">diabetes</a>. Room
after room, floor after floor, diabetes. On any given day, hospital officials
say, nearly half the patients are there for some trouble precipitated by
the disease. </p>
<p> An estimated 800,000 adult New Yorkers - more than one in every eight
- now have diabetes, and city health officials describe the problem as a
bona fide <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/epidemics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival health news about Epidemics.">epidemic</a>. Diabetes
is the only major disease in the city that is growing, both in the number
of new cases and the number of people it kills. And it is growing quickly,
even as other scourges like <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/heartdisease/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival health news about Heart Disease.">heart disease</a>
and cancers are stable or in decline.[snip]</p>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial5/09diabetes.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=ca11a007f48e1986&hp&ex=1136782800&partner=homepage">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial5/09diabetes.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=ca11a007f48e1986&hp&ex=1136782800&partner=homepage</a><br>
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