Diabetes is chronic and continues increasing overall health risks
Diabetes is a chronic condition that mainly occurs when your body cannot regulate excessive glucose levels. If undiagnosed or poorly controlled, it will most likely result in various complications, including blndness, kidney failure and lower limb amputation.
Diabetes increases risks of cardiovascular disease along with greater risks of becoming severely ill if you get nfected by a virus based disease.
About 32 to 33 million E.U. adults were diagnosed with diabetes in 2019, increased from an estimate of 16.8 million adults in 2000. About 24.2 million people in Europe were estimated to have diabetes but were undiagnosed in 2019 (IDF, 2019).
Men with diagnosed diabetes have increased rapidly since 2000, doubling from about 7.3 million in 2000 to 16.7 million in 2019.
EU women with diabetes have also gone up from 9.5 million in 2000 to 15.6 million in 2019, an increase of over 50% (Figure 3.25). Men are more prone to develop diabetes because of biological factors and have to gain less weight than women to develop this condition.
Diabetes is most common among older people: 19.3 million people aged 60-79 have diabetes across EU countries, compared with 11.3 million people aged 40-59 and only 1.7 million aged 20-39 (Figure 3.26).
While men more than women have diabetes in middle age (between 40 and 59 years), more women have diabetes over 70 mainly because they live longer.
Diabetes prevalence among adults (diagnosed and age-standardised) effects 6.2% on average in EU countries in 2019. Rates varied from 9% or more in Cyprus, Portugal, and Germany to lunder 4% in Ireland and Lithuania.
The prevalence of diabetes appears to have stabilised in many European countries in recent years, especially in Nordic countries, although they continued to go up slightly in Southern, Central and Eastern European countries. The upward trends are in part due to a rise in obesity and physical inactivity, and their interactions with population ageing (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, 2016).
Results from 2014 European Health Interview Survey, adults with the lowest level education are over twice as likely to report having diabetes than those with the highest level of education on average across EU countries. This may partly be due to a higher proportion of low educated people in older population groups. However, the prevalence of important risk factors for diabetes e,g, obesity is much higher among the lower levels of educated people.
Economic burdens from diabetes are substantial. The health expenditure allocated to treat diabetes and prevent complications are estimated at about EUR 150 billion in 2019 in the EU, with the average expenditure per diabetic adult estimated at about EUR 3 000 per year (IDF, 2019).
Type 2 diabetes is mosly preventable. Many risk factors, such as overweight and obesity, nutrition and physical inactivity, are modifiable using effective preventive strategies and lifestyle changes. Effective management of the growing number of people with diabetes is also a priority in many countries, normally involving a considerable amount of self care. So correct advice and education are central to the primary care of people with diabetes (OECD, 2020).