Diabetes set to cost State €1bn a year by 2010

DIABETES is set to cost the country €1 billion a year by the end of the decade, EU experts heard in Dublin yesterday.

A medical phenomenon sweeping the developed world, diabetes is the fastest growing preventable disease in Western society.

Health Minister Micheál Martin said it costs €444m a year to treat our 200,000 diagnosed diabetics.

That cost represents 10% of our healthcare budget, but predictions indicate the incidence of diabetes will double by 2010, as will the Exchequer bill.

It is estimated 100,000 people have diabetes, but are not diagnosed.

EU experts were meeting in Dublin to help put together a Europe-wide diabetes prevention strategy.

“Changes in our lifestyle and age profile make it inevitable that diabetes will be one of the great challenges facing all our health care systems over the next number of years,” Mr Martin told delegates.

MEP John Bovis, European Centre for Disease Control, said 60 million people live with diabetes in the enlarged Europe.

Over 50% of them are unaware of their condition.

He added: “In light of the growing trends of sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diets, it is only with the right health policy framework across Europe that the prevalence and burden of diabetes and its complications can be effectively reduced throughout Europe.”

Diabetes is the leading cause of heart disease, kidney failure and neuropathy, which affects at least half of all people with diabetes.

Heart disease accounts for 50% of all deaths among European diabetics.

Professor John Nolan, a consultant endocrinologist, at St James’s Hospital, Dublin, said the money spend on diabetes was “not being spent well”.

He explained: “The money is going on complications and on damage limitation when we could really invest in prevention.”

Type 2 diabetes, which is acquired during life, is preventable by “lifestyle intervention”, such as regular aerobic exercise and sensible dietary changes.

People at risk of diabetes included those with a family history of the condition and people who are overweight.

Doctors in Ireland are reporting teen diabetics in the classroom, which is associated with obesity and bad diet.