Washington (HealthKnowItAll) – It appears that the majority of Americans living with diabetes are from southeastern states, which appear to be the hub for the disease.

It appears that people living in this part of the country are at the highest risk of developing the disease, in which the pancreas fails to produce a hormone called insulin which is used to control the body’s blood sugar levels.

Researchers used health data to construct a map of the country focusing on hot spots when it came to diabetes cases to come up with their findings.

Using their data they surmise that people living in the following states are at an increased risk of developing the condition: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas ,Virginia, West Virginia and the entire state of Mississippi.

“We have known for a long time that diabetes was more common in the Southeast than it was in the rest of the nation, but in many ways that’s not an adequate definition,” said Lawrence Barker of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.