Diabetes

May 2007

Diabetes is a major risk for cardiovascular disease

• High blood glucose is a greater risk for ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke than smoking.¹
• People with diabetes have a higher prevalence of CVD risk factors and these are more harmful in the presence of diabetes than in people without diabetes.²
• For each CVD risk factor present, the risk of CVD death is about 3 times greater in people with diabetes compared to people without diabetes.²
• People with diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely to develop CVD disease than people without diabetes, making it the most common complication of diabetes.²
• Women with diabetes lose the pre-menopausal protective effect of estrogen so that their CVD risk is the same as most men’s.²
• Young adults with diabetes have rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) 12–40 times higher than those in people without diabetes.³
• Strokes happen twice as often in people with diabetes and hypertension compared to people with hypertension alone.²

Diabetes and CVD death: the statistics

• CVD accounts for 50% of all fatalities in people with diabetes.²
• After a coronary event, people with diabetes have a 1.5 to 2 times higher death rate than those without.²
• 84% of CVD diabetes-related deaths occur in low and middle income countries.¹
• South Asia accounts for 37% of worldwide diabetes-related IHD deaths 30% of worldwide stroke deaths.¹
• The countries of the former Soviet Union have the largest CVD diabetes-related mortality rate of any region.¹

Epidemiology of diabetes

• There are 246 million people in the world with diabetes.⁴
  
• Diabetes is rare where traditional lifestyles have persisted but where communities have undergone westernization and urbanization the prevalence of diabetes ranges from 14 to 20%.⁴
• India and China are at the forefront of the diabetes epidemic.⁴
• The Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East have the highest prevalence rates (9.2%) of diabetes followed by North America (8.4%).⁵

The future of diabetes

• By 2025 it is estimate that 380 million people will have diabetes, the increase driven by the rise in overweight and obesity.⁴
• In 2025, 80% of all cases of diabetes will be in low and middle income countries.⁵

Cost of diabetes

• In 2007, the world will spend at least €172.58 billion to treat and prevent diabetes and its complications. By 2025, this will be at least €225 billion.²
• Managing diabetes uses up about 10% of national healthcare budgets in many countries; about half is spent on the complications of diabetes of which CVD is the most significant drain on resources.²
• The CVD complications of diabetes could overwhelm developing countries that are still struggling to manage communicable diseases.⁴