document: Inside a small motor home , Joanne Pierluissi raised her sleeve as nurse Mary Perez inserted a needle into the vein above her forearm , drawing blood into a tube for a diabetes test . As her daughters watched , Pierluissi , 24 , said it was for them , as much as for herself , that she agreed to be tested for the deadly killer of Hispanics . Twelve million Americans have some form of diabetes , but it most prevalent among minorities , especially Native Americans , blacks and Hispanics . Hispanics are three times as likely to develop diabetes as the general population , and 40 percent of the 700,000 victims in Texas are Mexican-American . More than 150,000 Americans die from diabetes each year ; another 150,000 deaths are diabetes-related , according to the American Diabetes Association . No one really knows what sparks it , but researchers believe Hispanics could hold the key . San Antonio , the nation 's ninth largest city , with a population that is 50 percent Hispanic , is becoming the base for diabetes studies . San Antonio 's Hispanic makeup led Dr. Ralph DeFronzo to abandon his prestigious position as a Yale University diabetes researcher and persuade his four-member team to relocate to the University of Texas Health Science Center . Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Stern has devoted 10 years to studying Hispanic diabetes and led the grassroots study of the most common form , which develops mostly in obese adults over 40 who may have a family history of the disease . Stern said family studies of diabetic patients are brining him closer to finding the gene that triggers the disease , and to a screening test . Researchers believe that poor Hispanics ' diets of cheap , processed foods , lack of exercise and infrequent medical attention _ either due to poverty or a cultural bias against doctors _ increases their risk of acquiring diabetes . Educating elementary-school-age children about healthy diets would help reduce the number of diabetes cases , DeFronzo said . `` If you have a 65-year-old mother who weighs 220 pounds and you tell her to go out and jog five miles Monday , Wednesday and Friday , she is going to laugh at you . ''
extractive_keyphrases: diabetes test minorities american diabetes association diabetes studies hispanic diabetes diabetic patients healthy diets