World diabetes bill skyrockets as disease spreads

As simple a treatment as aspirin is one way to cut the more than $232 billion spent on diabetes each year and help prevent related deaths due to heart attacks and strokes, a health economist said on Tuesday.

Jonathan Betz Brown, chair of the task force on diabetes health economics at the International Diabetes Federation, said rocketing costs of preventing and treating diabetes would likely rise to more than $300 billion per year by 2025.

Much of the costs are borne by developing countries where diabetes rates are rising but resources to fight it are lowest.

"Costs are exploding, but we're not spending enough in places where most (diabetic) people live," Brown told a news conference at the World Diabetes Congress in Cape Town. "We all pay for diabetes - it comes out of economic growth."

Annual diabetes deaths are now at about 3.8 million, equivalent to the global toll of HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.

About 80 percent of the estimated 380 million people projected to contract diabetes in the next 20 years will be in poor and middle income countries where medical systems are weak.

The United States, home to just 8 percent of the world's total population of people with diabetes, accounts for more than 50 percent of global diabetes expenditure or more than $6,000 per patient.

The impoverished African nation of Burundi, by contrast, spends just $6 per patient.

The World Health Organization estimates that diabetes, heart disease and strokes will be major drags on economic growth as health care costs and lost productivity begin to bite.

China will see half a trillion dollars in lost national income over the next 10 years due to the diseases, while India and Russia will both lose more than $300 billion.

Even poor countries will suffer, with Tanzania expected to lose about $2.5 billion.

Despite this, poor countries could cut costs through simple efforts to prevent and treat diabetes and its complications.

Brown said countries must do more to make insulin available by subsidizing it rather than taxing as is now often the case.

In Mozambique, he said, a person needing insulin would likely die within 12 months due to a lack of medicine.

Other steps include the promotion of smoking cessation, exercise and diet programs plus the use of generic drugs to reduce blood pressure, control blood sugar and cholesterol.

And then there is the home medicine cabinet staple.

"Aspirin is probably the cheapest drug in the world and reduces the risk of cardio-vascular disease and stroke by 25 percent right off the top," he said. "It's not just cost effective, it actually saves money."