Hot on the heels of a recent report of obesity's increasing burden on healthcare funds comes a study that predicts the cost of diabetes will triple over the next 25 years. A doubling of diabetes cases and resultant complications is the driving force behind the predicted surge in diabetes costs for healthcare and medical treatment.
Current and Future Diabetes Prevalence
Currently, 23.7 million people in the United States have diabetes, accounting for nearly 8% of the entire population. Of these, nearly a quarter remain undiagnosed. Detection of diabetes at an early stage is important in order to control blood sugar levels and prevent complications associated with the disease, such as nerve damage, kidney disease, heart disease and vision complications.
More than one million people in the USA are diagnosed with diabetes each year, with around 1.6 million new cases diagnosed in 2007 alone. Huang et al., the authors of a new study published in the December issue of Diabetes Care journal, predict that diabetes levels in the USA are likely to double in the next 25 years, resulting in 44.1 million sufferers by 2034.
Rising Cost of Diabetes for Healthcare and Medical Treatment
As the diabetes epidemic continues to expand, so does the cost of diabetes associated with diagnosis and treatment of the disease, as well as associated complications, are also on the rise.
The American Diabetes Association reported that the direct healthcare cost of diabetes was US$116 billion in 2007. Huang and colleagues have estimated that current medical diabetes costs lie around US$113 billion, and predict this figure to triple by 2034, and reach US$336 billion due to the rising prevalence of the disease. In addition, expenses for Medicare eligible patients are expected to account for more than half of the cost of diabetes in 2034, which exceeds the current projections of spending for Medicare.
The forecast rise in diabetes prevalence and resultant healthcare costs by Huang and colleagues is said to be largely driven by the increasing size of the US population, as the size of the incoming age cohorts changes over the study period. Their model, however, assumes that recent trends in obesity prevalence rates will remain the same during this time frame. Rather than obesity rates rising, predictions for obesity levels are that they will taper off slightly from 30% in 2009 to 27% in 2033. However, if obesity levels do rise, the model may actually be under-estimating the real cost of diabetes for healthcare, since obesity is a well-known risk for development of the disease.
In addition, the study does not take into account indirect diabetes costs, which in 2007 were estimated to lie in the region of US$58 billion. Indirect costs take into consideration factors such as absenteeism from work, reduced productivity, and lost productive capacity due to early mortality.
Increasing Cost of Diabetes Places Strain on Healthcare Funds
Medical expenses for diabetics are, on average, approximately 2.3 times higher than for those people who do not have diabetes, with approximately 10% of healthcare dollars spent on the condition and its complications. The expanding diabetes epidemic and resultant rise in the cost of diabetes is placing increasing burden on healthcare funds, which is already facing the strain from costs associated with the advancing age of the baby boomer generation.
As a result, Huang and colleagues conclude that their study shows that significant changes in both public and private strategies are needed in order to help stem the rise in prevalence of diabetes, which is expected to fuel this rise in healthcare costs.
Readers may also be interested in the following articles:
The Rising Cost of Obesity
The Link Between Weight, Obesity and Cancer
Sources:
American Diabetes Association 2008, ‘Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2007’ Diabetes Care March 2008 vol. 31, pp596-615
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2009, ‘Diabetes: Successes and Opportunities for Population-Based Prevention and Control’ Accessed 1/12/2009
Diabetes Australia 2009, ‘Type 2 Diabetes’, Accessed 29/11/2009
Huang et al., 2009, ‘Projecting the Future Diabetes Population Size and Related Costs for the U.S.’ Diabetes Care Dec 2009, vol. 32, pp2225-2229
Christine Redmond - My interest in science and healthcare has seen me working in the laboratory with tiny cells and DNA to helping set up a cancer clinical ...
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