• Researchers berate WHO, IDF over mortality, prevalence
Researchers have raised a fresh alarm that there is now a diabetes epidemic worldwide.
Scientists in a new study published yesterday in Nature Reviews claimed the condition globally has been severely underestimated by at least 25 per cent and that more than 100 million extra people across the world may have diabetes than previously thought.
The new landmark paper found the actual figure of people around the world to have diabetes may be as high as 520 million compared to the 415 million estimate provided out last year by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF).
The researchers argued that the organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the IDF have used inappropriate methods to determine diabetes mortality and prevalence.
The paper, published in Nature Reviews, recommended an alternative blood glucose test for both fasting and at two hours after a drink test to provide a more accurate set of data.
Author of the paper and professor of diabetes at Monash University Paul Zimmet, Australia, said: “The way the global data on diabetes has been collected has been inconsistent and not of the standard needed for public health planning to address what is now one of the largest chronic disease epidemics in human history.
“Over 12 per cent of global health expenditure is directed to diabetes treatment.
“There are major and serious gaps in our knowledge of the burden of diabetes, particularly in developing countries which will have significant unforeseen impacts on national health care systems.”
Zimmet believed the cause of the underestimation of diabetes is due to the lack of national data on diabetes in many developing countries – and the methods of testing for the condition.
And he claimed the number of people with diabetes and prediabetes in Indigenous communities in Australia has been underestimated.
He added: “While the WHO recommends a blood glucose test both fasting and at two hours after a glucose drink, only the fasting glucose is used in many instances resulting in an underestimate of at least 25 per cent in the number of new cases of diabetes.”
The researchers recommend a second test, a glucose challenge, be conducted after the two-hour fasting as a way to confirm the actual likelihood a patient has or will develop diabetes.
According to co-author Prof. Sir George Alberti, a former President of the IDF and the Royal College of Physicians: “Accurate data on the burden of diabetes is required so that countries can identify current and future healthcare priorities to estimate direct and indirect economic and societal costs of the disease and to allocate appropriate healthcare resources and expenditures for healthcare delivery.”
