Improved Diabetes Survival Fuels Higher Prevalence

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom), the University of Dundee (United Kingdom), and other institutions analyzed data from the Scottish national diabetes register to determine overall T2DM incidence, with death rates identified from linkage to mortality records and mortality rates. The data were stratified by year from 2004 to 2013 by age, sex, and socioeconomic deprivation.

The results showed that in Scotland, the mortality rate among people with T2DM declined from 19.8 per 1,000 in 2004 to 16.7 per 1,000 in 2013. During the same time period, the incidence of new cases remained constant at about 4 per 1,000, resulting in the overall prevalence of disease increasing from 3.2% to 5.1%. In raw numbers, there were 77,953 deaths among T2DM diabetics and 180,290 new cases diagnosed during that time, leading to an increase of 102,337 people living with the disease.

Other findings of the study were that mortality rates declined by 11.5% for men and 15.7% for women with T2DM during the same period; the proportion of men among incident cases increased from 53% to 57%; for both men and women, incidence rates were highest at 75 years of age and lowest at 45 years of age; incidence rates were higher among the poor, increasing among the poorest from 2010 onward; and that the higher incidence rates observed in men could be associated with male body fat distribution and greater insulin resistance. The study was published on July 28, 2016, in Diabetologia.

“Despite improvements in absolute mortality rates, T2DM confers an excess risk of death compared with the non-diabetic population, and this excess risk is higher in Scotland than in other countries,” concluded lead author Stephanie Read, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues. “Our findings suggest that improved survival is the leading contributor to increasing diabetes prevalence, and these trends are likely to have important implications for health services, partly through the possible increased incidence of complications resulting from longer diabetes durations.”

T2DM, once known as adult-onset or noninsulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition that affects glucose metabolism. In T2DM, the body either resists the effects of insulin or does not produce enough insulin to maintain a normal glucose level. More common in adults, it is increasingly affecting children as childhood obesity increases.

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University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
University of Dundee