I guess Diabetes was greatly overlooked here at OWVI>>> READ!!! btw, wonder if there ever was an approval??
WSJ: Diabetes More Prevalent Worldwide Than Expected - Lancet Study
Date : 06/25/2011 @ 6:15PM
Source : Dow Jones News
WSJ: Diabetes More Prevalent Worldwide Than Expected - Lancet Study
By Gautam Naik
Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The number of adults with diabetes has doubled to nearly 350 million over the last three decades, a sign that the epidemic is imposing ever-greater costs on health systems around the world.
The latest calculation, published in the British journal Lancet, found that the number of adult diabetics jumped to 347 million from 153 million in 1980. While about 70% of the increase was attributed to population growth and aging, the balance was linked to changing diets, rising obesity levels and less physical activity.
"Diabetes is a long-lasting and disabling condition, and it's going to be the largest cost for many health systems," said Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, a lead author of the study. The total cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. was estimated at $174 billion in 2007, according to the American Diabetes Association. According to the study, the U.S. had 24.7 million diabetics in 2008, nearly triple the level of three decades ago.
The estimate includes people afflicted with type-1 diabetes, which is a disorder of the body's immune system, as well as the far more common type-2 diabetes, a chronic disorder marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization.
Many public health experts consider the rise in diabetes to be more worrying than the rise in high blood pressure rates and cholesterol levels. While rates for those conditions have dropped in some parts of the world, type-2 diabetes is becoming more common almost everywhere, and is increasingly showing up in children.
There are effective drugs for high blood pressure and cholesterol, but it's harder to prevent or treat diabetes. Plus, the condition is more debilitating for many patients. It occurs when the cells of the body cannot take up sugar in the form of glucose, and can lead to kidney failure, blindness or amputation of limbs.
The latest study represents a more comprehensive calculation of diabetes prevalence than some previous estimates. The estimate of 347 million by Lancet, for example, is nearly 25% higher than an estimate of 285 million adult diabetics reported in a 2009 study.
Doctors commonly test for diabetes by measuring the level of glucose in the blood at least eight hours after a person last ate a meal. A higher-than-normal level is effectively a diagnosis of the condition.
The Lancet study incorporated glucose measurements from 2.7 million adults across the world. The proportion of diabetic men rose to 9.8% in 2008 from 8.3% in 1980. The proportion of women with the disease rose to 9.2% from 7.5% over the same period.
About 138 million adult diabetics live in China and India and another 36 million in the U.S. and Russia. Among high-income countries, the increase in diabetes was highest in North America but relatively small in western Europe.
The picture isn't clear-cut, however. For example, while diabetes increased slightly in Japan over the three decades, levels stayed flat in South Korea and Thailand, which Ezzati attributes to healthier lifestyles in the latter two countries.
Similarly, while the increase in the average American's body mass index, which is a measure of body fat, was much greater than the equivalent rise in India, the rise in diabetes levels was similar in both populations. Ezzati says this puzzle could be explained by what's known as the Barker hypothesis, which holds that when a fetus is deprived of adequate nutrients in the womb, it may become predisposed to various ailments in later life, including diabetes.
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