Diabetes Cases Are Skyrocketing Worldwide

Diabetes, a disease that can be a complication of obesity, has exploded in the last three decades, with the number of people with the disease doubling since 1980.

A major international study collating and analyzing worldwide data on diabetes counted 347 million with the disease in 2008. The research, published in the British medical journal Lancet, found that the rate of diabetes cases has risen, or stayed the same, in virtually every part of the world since 1980.

Diabetes occurs when the cells of the body are not able to take up sugar in the form of glucose. As a consequence, the amount of glucose in the blood is higher than normal.

Over time, this raises the risk of heart disease and stroke, and can also cause damage to the kidneys, nerves and retinas. High blood glucose and diabetes are responsible for over three million deaths worldwide each year.

347 million cases in 2008

The study found that between 1980 and 2008, the number of adults with diabetes rose from 153 million to 347 million. Most of the increase was due to an aging and ever-expanding population. About 30 percent of the increase to other risk factors.

The proportion of adults with diabetes rose to 9.8 per cent of men and 9.2 per cent of women in 2008, compared with 8.3 per cent of men and 7.5 per cent of women in 1980. The estimated number of diabetics was considerably higher than a previous study in 2009 which put the number worldwide at 285 million.

The study, the largest of its kind for diabetes, was carried out by an international collaboration of researchers from Imperial College London, the Harvard School of Public Health, the World Health Organization, and other institutions.

U.S. diabetes levels among the highest

Among developed nations, the rise in diabetes was smallest in Western Europe and highest in North America. In fact, diabetes and glucose levels were highest in U.S., Greenland, Malta, New Zealand and Spain, and lowest in the Netherlands, Austria and France.

The study found that diabetes has taken off most dramatically in Pacific Island nations, which now have the highest diabetes levels in the world. In the Marshall Islands, one in three women and one in four men have diabetes. Glucose and diabetes were also particularly high in south Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

Of the 347 million people with diabetes, 138 million live in China and India and another 36 million in the U.S. and Russia.

"Unless we develop better programs for detecting people with elevated blood sugar and helping them to improve their diet and physical activity and control their weight, diabetes will inevitably continue to impose a major burden on health systems around the world," said Dr. Goodarz Danaei, from the Harvard School of Public Health.