Diabetes tipped to hit harder than Aids

PARIS - More than 300 million people worldwide are at risk of developing diabetes and the disease's economic impact in some hard-hit countries could be higher than that of the Aids pandemic, diabetes experts warned yesterday.

In a report released at the International Diabetes Federation conference in Paris, experts estimate the annual healthcare cost of diabetes worldwide for people aged 20 to 79 is at least US$153 billion ($265 billion).

"In some countries with a higher incidence, diabetes has a higher economic impact than Aids," said Williams Rhys, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Wales.

According to the Diabetes Atlas report, total direct healthcare spending on the disease worldwide will be between US$213 billion and US$396 billion by 2025, if predictions are correct that the number of people with diabetes will rise to 333 million from 194 million.

Diabetes occurs in two basic forms: type I, which occurs in children and adolescents and accounts for 5 per cent to 10 per cent of all diabetes cases, and the more common type II, or adult onset diabetes.

Patients with type I diabetes do not produce enough insulin; those with type II produce insulin but cannot use it effectively. More than 75 per cent of diabetes cases are expected to be in developing countries by 2025 because of rapid culture and social changes as well as increasing urbanisation. This is expected to further burden healthcare systems already stretched by the Aids pandemic.

"What Aids was in the last 20 years of the 20th century, diabetes will be in the first 20 years of this century," said Paul Zimmet, of the International Diabetes Institute.

Zimmet and other experts say the diabetes epidemic will be fuelled by an estimated 314 million people with impaired glucose tolerance or higher than normal blood glucose levels - a high-risk condition for developing type II diabetes.

They want food companies - especially those who make fast foods - to produce healthier foods and governments to set up national campaigns to combat diabetes.

- REUTERS