At today's press conference in Cape Town, IDF President Pierre Lefebvre told reporters, "Just twenty years ago, the best information available suggested that 30 million people had diabetes. A bleaker picture has now emerged. Diabetes is fast becoming the epidemic of the 21st century."

Diabetes, mostly type 2 diabetes, now affects 5.9% of the world's adult population with almost 80% of the total in developing countries. The regions with the highest rates are the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, where 9.2 % of the adult population are affected, and North America (8.4%). The highest numbers, however, are found in the Western Pacific, where some 67 million people have diabetes, followed by Europe with 53 million.

India leads the global top ten in terms of the highest number of people with diabetes with a current figure of 40.9 million, followed by China with 39.8 million. Behind them come USA; Russia; Germany; Japan; Pakistan; Brazil; Mexico and Egypt. Developing countries account for seven of the world's top ten.

According to IDF President-Elect Martin Silink, "The diabetes time bomb has been ticking for 50 years, and it's been getting louder. Despite the warning, successive generations of world leaders have largely ignored the threat. Diabetes has now exploded with the force felt greatest in the Middle East, India, China and the USA."

Lifestyles in transition

A complex interplay of genetic, social and environmental factors is driving the global explosion in type 2 diabetes. For low and middle-income countries, economic advancement can lead to alterations to the living environment that result in changes in diet and physical activity within a generation or two. Consequently, people can develop diabetes despite relatively low gains in weight. In the developed world, diabetes is most common among the poorest communities. Either way, wherever poverty and lack of sanitation drive families to low cost-per-calorie foods and packaged drinks, type 2 diabetes thrives.

Diabetes is deadly. It accounts for 3.8 million deaths per year, similar in magnitude to HIV/AIDS. Once thought of as a disease of the elderly, diabetes has shifted down a generation to affect people of working age, particularly in developing countries. This has economic consequences. As IDF Vice-President Jean-Claude Mbanya puts it, "This epidemic is responsible for so much suffering and loss of life, yet so little is being done to tackle it. Where growing economies like India and China lead, many will soon follow. Doing nothing in the face of the epidemic will place significant stress on the economic development of many countries and will jeopardize the Millennium Development Goals."

A United Nations Resolution

The International Diabetes Federation leads a coalition of diabetes representative organizations and other stakeholders demanding a United Nations Resolution on diabetes to ensure that adequate attention is given to the disease. For a country like the Pacific Island nation of Nauru, a UN Resolution cannot come soon enough. Nauru tops the list of countries with the highest prevalence of diabetes. Almost a third of the entire population live with diabetes and its consequences.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is an organization of over 190 member associations in more than 150 countries. Its mission is to promote diabetes care, prevention and a cure worldwide. IDF leads the campaign for a UN Resolution on diabetes. See www.unitefordiabetes.org.

The Diabetes Atlas provides up-to-date estimates of diabetes prevalence and impaired glucose tolerance, and health expenditures for more than 200 countries for the years 2007 and 2025. See www.eatlas.idf.org/media for relevant graphics and background materials.

SOURCE International Diabetes Federation (IDF)