10 April 2008
Diabetes Threatens Lives Worldwide
Research projects aim to improve treatment, identify prevention strategies
Washington -- Without effective countermeasures, one chronic disease is projected to cause 50 percent more deaths in 2015 than it did in 2006 -- 80 percent more in affluent nations -- according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Diabetes, which WHO estimates causes about 5 percent of all deaths globally each year, affects 246 million people worldwide. It likely will affect 380 million by 2025, says the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), a worldwide alliance of diabetes associations in more than 160 countries.
In the United States, 20.8 million people have diabetes, 6.2 million of them not yet diagnosed. In 2007 the United States joined India, China, Russia and Germany as one of the nations with the largest numbers of diabetics.
Diabetes is marked by high levels of blood glucose (sugar) resulting from the body’s inability to produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that helps convert sugar into energy.
Type 1 diabetes usually is diagnosed in children or young adults. Those with type 1 cannot produce insulin and must treat their condition with insulin delivered by injection or an implanted pump.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for about 90 to 95 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes and most often occurs in adults over 40. Type 2, which occurs when the body stops producing enough insulin, can be treated with diet, exercise and, if necessary, oral medications.
Over time, diabetes can harm internal organs and lead to complications -- heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney failure, amputations, nervous system damage, sexual dysfunction and death related to flu or pneumonia.
These complications contribute to ballooning health care costs. In the United States in 2007, the cost of treating diabetes and its complications totaled $174 billion, according to the American Diabetes Association. WHO estimates that China will lose $558 billion in national income from 2006 to 2015 as the result of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
TREATABLE, PREVENTABLE
Despite the statistics, many health and medical experts believe good information and proper care can allow people with diabetes or those at increased risk of developing the disease to lead long, healthy lives. Research also suggests that diabetes, like many chronic diseases, can be prevented.
An ongoing international research project on the environmental determinants of diabetes in the young (the TEDDY study) focuses on type 1 diabetes. The project aims to identify environmental factors that trigger type 1 diabetes. This study involves six groups of researchers in the United States, German y, Sweden and Finland who follow children at a genetically higher-than-average risk for diabetes.
“Finding out more about these events and how they act together will lead to a better understanding of how type 1 diabetes develops and how to prevent, slow down or reverse the disease,” according to TEDDY’s Web site.
A 2007 study conducted by a team of U.S. and Finnish researchers and two other groups examined the link between genes and diabetes. The study found at least four new genetic variants related to increased diabetes risk and confirmed the existence of another six variants.
“This achievement represents a major milestone in our battle against diabetes. It will accelerate efforts to understand the genetic risk factors for this disease, as well as explore how these genetic factors interact with each other and with lifestyle factors,” Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said in a statement.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a five-year study, “SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth,” aims to examine diabetes in U.S. children and adolescents.
Dr. Giuseppina Imperatore, in the Division of Diabetes Translation at the CDC, said the ongoing study, co-funded by NIH, focuses on children with all types of diabetes. The study’s primary goals include the following:
• developing a uniform classification of types of childhood diabetes;
• estimating the number of new and existing cases by type, age, gender and race or ethnic group;
• identifying the clinical characteristics of different types of diabetes and how they evolved;
• describing complications of diabetes in the young; and
• describing the quality of life of children and adolescents with diabetes.
Programs that target type 2 diabetes address prevention and management. Joan Chamberlain of the Office of Communications and Public Liaison at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) cites the National Diabetes Education Program’s Small Steps. Big Rewards. Prevent type 2 Diabetes., a national diabetes prevention campaign aimed at “reaching high-risk audiences to inform them that type 2 diabetes can be prevented by increasing physical activity and lowering caloric intake.”
The campaign arose from a Diabetes Prevention Program study that showed that people at increased risk for type 2 diabetes can prevent or delay its onset by losing 5 percent to 7 percent of their body weight through increased exercise and dietary changes.
More information on diabetes-related research and treatment programs can be found at the Web sites of the NIDDK and the CDC.
Additional information on TEDDY and SEARCH is available on Web sites maintained by those projects.
