Key facts

This page contains information that is, quite frankly, shocking. However type 2 diabetes can be managed or prevented. That is the whole purpose of the Global Diabetes Walk.

• Anyone can get diabetes, even you.
• Every 30 seconds, a leg is lost to diabetes somewhere in the world. Thats more than 1 Million amputations a year!
• It is estimated that up to 85% of amputations could be avoided.
• In 2007, diabetes is expected to result in 3.8 million deaths (or 6% of world mortality), the same figure as HIV / AIDS.
• Every 10 seconds, someone dies from diabetes related causes and 2 new cases are diagnosed.
• Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and visual impairment in adults worldwide
• Type 2 diabetes accounts for more than 90% of all diabetes cases
• People with type 2 diabetes have the same risk of heart attack as people without diabetes who have already had one.
• Obesity is a key factor in Type 2 diabetes.
• For many people Type 2 diabetes can be managed or prevented by a healthy diet and regular exercise.

• In a generation, diabetes has had a six-fold increase. In 1985 there were an estimated 30 million people with diabetes. Today diabetes affects more than 230 million people, almost 6% of the world's adult population.
• The number of people living with diabetes is expected to grow to 350 million in less than 20 years if action is not taken. 
• Diabetes is one ot the major causes of premature death worldwide. Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related causes. The death rates are predicted to rise by 25% over the next decade.
• Diabetes is increasing faster in the world's developing economies than in developed countries. Seven out of ten countries with the highest number of people living with diabetes are in the developing world. With an estimated 35 million people with diabetes, India has the world's largest diabetes population. 
• Each year another 6 million people develop diabetes. In many countries in Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and the Caribbean, diabetes affects 12-20% of the adult population.
• If present trends persist, by 2025 the majority of people with diabetes in the developing countries will be in the 45-64 age group.
• Type 2 diabetes is responsible for 90-95% of diabetes cases. 80% of type 2 diabetes is preventable by changing diet, increasing physical activity and improving the living environment.

Diabetes and Children

Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases to affect children. It can strike children of any age, even toddlers and babies. If not detected early enough in a child, the disease can be fatal or result in serious brain damage. Yet diabetes in a child is often completely overlooked: it is often misdiagnosed as the flu or it is not diagnosed at all.

Every parent, school teacher, school nurse, doctor and anyone involved in the care of children should be familiar with the warning signs and alert to the diabetes threat.

Know the diabetes warning signs

• Frequent urination
• Excessive thirst
• Increased hunger
• Weight loss
• Tiredness
• Lack of interest and concentration
• Blurred vision
• Vomiting and stomach pain (often mistaken as the flu)

*In children with type 2 diabetes these symptoms may be mild or absent.

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a chronic, potentially debilitating and often fatal disease. It occurs as a result of problems with the production and supply of the hormone insulin in the body. The body needs insulin to use the energy stored in food. When someone has diabetes they produce no or insufficient insulin (type 1 diabetes), or their body cannot use effectively the insulin they produce (type 2 diabetes).

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that cannot be prevented. Globally it is the most common form of diabetes in children, affecting around 500,000 children under 15. However, as a result of increasing childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles, type 2 diabetes is also increasing fast in children and adolescents. In some countries (e.g. Japan), type 2 diabetes has become the most common form of the disease in children.

• Globally, there are close to 500,000 children under the age of 15 with type 1 diabetes.
• Every day 200 children develop type 1 diabetes.
• Every year, 70,000 children under the age of 15 develop type 1 diabetes.
• Type 1 diabetes is increasing in children at a rate of 3% each year
• Type 1 diabetes is increasing fastest in pre-school children, at rate of 5% per year.
• Finland, Sweden and Norway have the highest incidence rates for type 1 diabetes in children.
• Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight and reports reveal that it now exists in children thought previously not to be at risk.
  In Native and Aboriginal communities in the United States, Canada and Australia at least one in 100 youth have diabetes. In some communities, it is one in every 25.
• Over half of children with diabetes develop complications within 15 years.
• Global studies have shown that type 2 diabetes can be prevented by enabling individuals to lose 7-10% of their body weight, and by increasing their physical activity to a modest level.
• Type 2 diabetes in children is becoming a global public health issue with potentially serious outcomes.
• Type 2 diabetes affects children in both developed and developing countries.

No Child Should Die of Diabetes

Diabetes is a deadly disease. Each year, almost 4 million people die from diabetes- related causes. Children, particularly in countries where there is limited access to diabetes care and supplies, die young.

• Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA), a build-up of excess acids in the body as a result of uncontrolled diabetes, is the major cause of death in children with type 1 diabetes. With early diagnosis and access to care, the development of severe DKA should be preventable.
• Insulin was discovered more than 85 years ago. Today children in many parts of the world still die because this essential drug is not available to them.
• Children with diabetes should monitor their blood sugar regularly to help control their diabetes. This monitoring equipment is often unavailable or not affordable.

Lack of sufficient diagnosis and treatment

• In developing countries, less than half of people with diabetes are diagnosed. Without timely diagnoses and adequate treatment, complications and morbidity from diabetes rise exponentially.
• Studies carried out recently in Zambia, Mali and Mozambique highlight a stark reality: a person requiring insulin for survival in Zambia will live an average of 11 years; a person in Mali can expect to live for 30 months; in Mozambique a person requiring insulin will be dead within 12 months
• Diabetes is responsible for over one million amputations each year, a large percentage of cataracts and at least five percent of worldwide blindness is due to diabetic retinal disease. Diabetes is the largest cause of kidney failure in developed countries and is responsible for huge dialysis costs.The risk of heart disease and stroke are all significantly higher for people with diabetes.
• In some cases indispensable for survival, and in others necessary to maintain normal blood sugar levels, insulin remains under utilised in many developing countries. Culturally based misconceptions and chronic shortages are just some of the reasons for this.
• The diabetes pandemic, which consists primarily of type 2 diabetes, has evolved in association with rapid cultural changes, aging populations, increasing urbanisation, dietary changes, decreased physical activity and other unhealthy lifestyles and behavioural patterns. Without effective prevention and control programmes, the incidence of diabetes is likely to continue rising globally.
• It may seem strange that the developing world, which is often associated with hunger and inadequate nutrition for children, is now experiencing an epidemic in type 2 diabetes, a disease related to wealth and unhealthy lifestyle. This can be explained with the high degree of urbanisation in some countries like e.g. India that have made people adapt the lifestyle from the industrial countries causing diseases such as diabetes related to this new lifestyle. It is also a fact that some people genetically have a higher risk of developing diabetes and combined with great changes in lifestyle this risk has turned to reality for many people in those countries.

Diabetes costs – a burden for families and society

• Because of the chronic nature of the disease, the severity of its complications and the means required to control them, diabetes is a costly disease. Mechanisms for financing health care are non-existent in most developing countries and health costs therefore typically represent out-of-pocket expenditure. In many instances, the choice is between health care and food or clothing, and such financial constraints inevitably result in under-consumption of health care services.
• According to WHO, 80% of people in developing countries pay directly for some or all of their own medicine. In Latin America, families pay 40-60% of diabetes care costs out of their own pockets. For a low-income Indian family with an adult with diabetes, as much as 25% of family income may be devoted to diabetes care.
• In 2007, the world will spend an estimated 215-375 billion USD to care for diabetes and its complications. If nothing is done over the next 20 years, the figure will rise to between 234 billion and 411 billion USD. Diabetes is growing fastest in low- and middle-income countries. It is therefore the developing countries that will bear the brunt of the spiralling costs.
• In developing countries, the prevailing poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and poor health consciousness further adds to the problem. Those who cannot afford or do not have access to even bare minimum health care facilities are likely to be diagnosed late and suffer from diabetes related complications (because of delay in diagnosis and/or improper treatment). Furthermore, many people with type 1 (i.e. insulin dependent) diabetes die before they are diagnosed, or soon after diagnosis, due to inadequate access to treatment.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that diabetes, heart disease and stroke together will cost about $555.7 billion in lost national income in China over the next 10 years, $303.2 billion in the Russian Federation; $336.6 billion in India; $49.2 billion in Brazil and $2.5 billion even in a very poor country like Tanzania. These estimates are based on lost productivity, resulting primarily from premature death.

Source; IDF Atlas Third Edition, WDF backgrounders and WDD website