Dick Clark has adult-onset diabetes

‘Bandstand’ host kept condition secret for years

Television video

Williams thanks viewers for five years
Dec. 2: Brian Williams thanks Nightly News viewers, his family, and his colleagues as he marks his fifth year anchoring NBC Nightly News. “I'm hoping this is just my first five year anniversary,” he says.

Will LL Cool J show off his abs?

‘Chuck’ actor on ‘Chipmunks’ role

Steven Seagal on new reality show

TV mom: 'I'm a lesbian'

updated 4:27 p.m. ET April 14, 2004

LOS ANGELES - Dick Clark, renowned as “America’s oldest teenager,” has diabetes.

Clark, 74, has had type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, since 1994, but kept it a secret from everyone except close friends and family, according to the Ogilvy public relations firm, which is promoting his new role as a spokesman for the American Association of Diabetes Educators and the pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co.

Clark is working with the firms to launch “Diabetes: Know the Heart Part,” a national public education campaign to alert Americans to the link between diabetes and heart attack and stroke.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Clark, the former host of “American Bandstand” and producer of the American Music Awards, declined to speak to The Associated Press Tuesday after word of his illness was first reported in a gossip column in the New York Daily News.