Diabetes Projections Exceed Estimates

Source: USA Today, Tuesday, December 5, 2006

An estimated 246 million people in the world have diabetes, and within 20 years the disease could afflict 380 million people, the International Diabetes Federation reported Monday at the World Diabetes Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. The estimates, which are published in IDF’s Diabetes Atlas, exceed pre-publication estimates released in June that 230 million people have diabetes and up to 350 million will in two decades. The IDF says diabetes, mainly type 2, which generally occurs in midlife, afflicts almost 6% of adults world wide, and nearly 80% of cases are in developed countries. The highest rates are in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, the report says, where more than 9% of adults have diabetes, followed by North America, where more than 8% of adults have the disease. “The diabetes time bomb has been ticking for 50 years, and it’s getting louder,” IDF president-elect Martin Silink said in a statement.