Worldwide 522 million diabetics

International Diabetes Federation warns of further increase in the metabolic disease diabetes

11/14/2011

Today, on World Diabetes Day, doctors, clinics, researchers, patient organizations and others around the world are informing about the risks, spread and new treatment approaches of so-called diabetes.

Both the spread of type 1 diabetes (autoimmune disease, which destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the body) and type 2 diabetes (so-called adult-onset diabetes due to insulin resistance) has increased significantly in recent decades. As the „International Diabetes Federation“ On the occasion of this year's World Diabetes Day, the number of people affected will continue to rise in the coming years, and in 20 years, one in ten adults around the world will be suffering from the metabolic disease.

By 2030, approximately 522 million diabetics worldwide
The „International Diabetes Federation“ presented a report on today's World Diabetes Day in Brussels, which estimates that by 2030, around 522 million people worldwide will suffer from diabetes. According to their own statements, the researchers based their calculations exclusively on the increasing life expectancy. The fact that more and more people worldwide are overweight or obese, resulting in a significantly increased type 2 diabetes risk, was disregarded in the current calculations, the statement said „International Diabetes Federation“. According to the experts, the number of those affected will increase massively on the African continent alone in the coming years and almost double by 2030. Diabetes is therefore becoming an ever greater health problem worldwide, especially as diabetics are subject to a significantly increased risk of other secondary diseases.

Diabetes in Germany for years with the status of a common disease
According to the Federal Statistical Office, about eight million diabetics currently live in Germany, which means that diabetes has long since reached the status of a widespread disease. According to the official figures, in Germany in particular the people in Thuringia are subject to a particularly high risk of dying from the consequences of the metabolic disease. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 35 out of every 100,000 people in Thuringia have died of diabetes, which corresponds to 4.6 percent of total deaths. Also in Hesse (4 percent) and in Saxony-Anhalt (3.4 percent) disproportionately many people died from the effects of diabetes, while in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein the diabetes-related deaths with 1.5 percent and one percent of Total deaths were relatively low. Across Germany, the proportion of diabetes-related deaths is 2.7 percent. (Fp)

Image: Michael Horn