International Diabetes Federation calls for immediate action to address the growing problem

Montreal | The world must urgently address a growing diabetes “epidemic,” warns the head of the International Diabetes Federation.

“The time has come for us to take concerted action,” said Dr. Jean Claude Mbanya, the president of the IDF, as the organization released the fourth edition of its Diabetes Atlas. “The time to act to stop this epidemic is now.”

In releasing the atlas at the 20th World Diabetes Congress here, the IDF said 285 million people worldwide have diabetes and that figure is expected to exceed 435 million in 2030.

“We believe this is a underestimation of the numbers,” said Dr. Mbanya, newly elected president of the IDF and a professor of endocrinology and metabolic diseases in Cameroon.

Dr. Nigel Unwin (PhD), an epidemiologist at Newcastle University in England who helped prepare the atlas, said whenever there was a choice between using a higher number that was questionable or estimating the number conservatively, the IDF team chose the conservative number.

“The world needs to invest in integrated health systems that can diagnose, treat and prevent diabetes,” he said.

Seven of the 10 most affected countries are low- to middle-income countries that can least afford to deal with the health costs of the disease, or the costs of treatment or prevention. It is estimated that $336 billion is spent each year on diabetes care. This does not include the economic costs of the disease, such as lost income.

Dr. David Whiting (PhD), an epidemiologist with the IDF and one of those responsible for preparing the report, said the numbers include only diabetics from 20 to 79 years of age because there are fewer firm statistics on those under that age. “From the few statistics that have been gathered, it is increasing in youth,” he said, adding it is a “significant” increase.

Diabetes now affects 7% of the world’s adult population. The regions with the highest prevalence rates are North America, where 10.2% of the adult population has diabetes, followed by the Middle East and North Africa with 9.3%. India is the country with the most people with diabetes, with a current figure of 50.8 million, followed by China with 43.2 million.

The United States has 26.8 million people with diabetes, or 10.3% of the population. Canada, by comparison, has a 9.2% diabetes rate.

But Dr. Whiting said the figures for the U.S. and Canada are, in fact, higher. To make national comparisons between countries, the IDF epidemiologists corrected the numbers to take into account that countries like Canada and the U.S. have relatively fewer people under the age of 20 than in other countries. That results in a lower percentage of the population being reported as having diabetes than in actual fact. Canada has an actual rate of 11.2% of the population with diabetes; the United States has 12.3%.