- 600 million will suffer diabetes in 20 years, 2.3 million in Australia
- Will kill one person every 6 seocnds (5.1 million people this year)
- Affects developing economies just as much as developed economies
- The US spends USD263 billion annually on diabetes
- In 2013, AU will spend AUD11.4 billion, with 1 in 10 adults afflicted and 9500 deaths attributed.
- Indigenous Australians have prevalence around 30%
- Western Pacific Islands have prevalence over 35%
- Middle East (Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait) has a diabetes prevalence of 24%
Source: http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/news/largest-epidemic-in-human-history
‘Largest epidemic in human history’
DIABETES is likely to be “the largest epidemic in human history” with the number of people with diabetes predicted to surge to nearly 600 million in 20 years, including 2.3 million in Australia, experts say.
The latest edition of the International Diabetes Federation’s Diabetes Atlas, published today on World Diabetes Day, estimated that diabetes kills one person every six seconds and it will cause the deaths of 5.1 million people this year.
Professor Paul Zimmet, director emeritus of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, said the Diabetes Atlas group predicted 20 years ago that there would be 200 million people in the world with diabetes, but the predicted numbers for 2035 are almost double.
“Diabetes is likely to be the biggest health problem, the largest epidemic in human history,” he said.
The data showed that the majority of the 382 million people with diabetes today are aged between 40 and 59 and 80% of them live in low- and middle-income countries.
Professor Jonathan Shaw, associate director of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, said the data debunked the historical idea that diabetes was a rich man’s disease.
“It really is not, when we look at the distributions across the world because the largest numbers of people with it are clearly in the developing world, particularly in our region with 138 million [in the Western Pacific] and 72 million in South Asia,” he said.
In contrast, around 37 million have diabetes in North America and 56 million in Europe.
However, health expenditure on diabetes in North American was 263 billion, higher than any other region in the world.
Australia spent $11.4 billion on diabetes care in 2013, with one in 10 adults now having diabetes, and more than 9500 people died from diabetes in Australia in 2013.
Comparative prevalence rates were highest in the Western Pacific Islands, where 37% of the population in Tokelau had diabetes, 35% in the Marshall Islands and 35% in Micronesia.
However, comparative prevalence rates had also surged in the Middle East where around 24% of the population in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have diabetes.
These prevalence rates were similar to that seen in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, where more than 30% of the population had diabetes, and high prevalence rates were common in indigenous people around the world.