Diabetes: pandemic alert, in 25 years it will affect 700 million people worldwide

There are 463 million adults worldwide living with diabetes, and it is estimated that by 2045 this pandemic will affect 700 million people, a growth of more than 50 percent; compared with two years ago, that’s nearly 40 million more people with the disease and forecasts for the future to continue to worsen. These are some of the data from the ninth edition of the IDF (International Diabetes Federation, https://www.diabetesatlas.org/en/) Atlas made public today on World Diabetes Day and discussed during the presentation at Palazzo Lombardia of the Milan leg of the “At the Heart of Diabetes” campaign, created to raise awareness of the importance of glycemic control, body weight and all other risk factors that contribute to the development of complications, particularly cardiovascular ones.

Also according to the IDF Atlas

Also according to the IDF Atlas, there are also an estimated 232 million people in the world with undiagnosed diabetes and 374 million people with Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT), or the state of pre-diabetes that nonetheless exposes them to a greater likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of disability and death in people with type 2 diabetes. In Italy, according to 2017 ISTAT data, compared with an average prevalence of cardiologic diseases among people over 45 of 7.5 percent, that among people with diabetes is about 17.1 percent, well over twice that found for non-diabetics, or 6.4 percent.

Cardiovascular complications are very common

“Cardiovascular complications are very common among people with type 2 diabetes,” says Elisabetta Lovati, SID Lombardy president. “Epidemiological data from the RIACE study indicate that nearly 1 in 4 people with diabetes have a prior major cardiovascular event, a prevalence that increases with the duration of diabetes, reaching 1 in 3 people among those who have had diabetes for more than 20 years.”

“Despite the strong correlation between diabetes and cardiovascular risk, from a recent survey also sponsored by the IDF, which involved more than 12.000 people with type 2 diabetes in 130 countries, partial knowledge of risk factors emerged. One in four patients were unaware of the role played by hypertension and overweight, one in three were unaware that hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia, smoking, and physical inactivity increase cardiovascular risk, and about one in two were unaware of the importance of high stress levels, long-standing diabetes, and age over 65 as risk factors. These data suggest that people with diabetes are not sufficiently informed, tend to underestimate the severity of the problem, and it is therefore crucial to include education about cardiovascular risk factors as an integral part of care for people with diabetes,” explains Antonio Nicolucci, CORESEARCH Director.

Raising awareness of the importance of glycemic control

“It was precisely to raise awareness of the importance of glycemic control, body weight and all other risk factors that contribute to the development of complications, particularly cardiovascular ones, that was the purpose of the national campaign “At the Heart of Diabetes,” says Regina Dagani, AMD Lombardy President. “Milan is the forty-eighth stop of the fifty planned in Italian squares of the mobile unit that allows people with diabetes to receive a diagnostic assessment of cardiovascular risk. Once the course of examinations is completed – measurement of glycated hemoglobin and lipid profile values, echocardiogram and carotid echocolordoppler – people with diabetes can meet with a diabetologist and a cardiologist.”.