In 2007, Diabetes Has Killed as Many People as HIV

Junk food and a sedentary lifestyle have inflicted many diseases that have taken a heavy toll worldwide. If we consider the rapid evolution and spread of the adult sugary diabetes (type II) from the last year, we can consider this the disease of the 21st century.

The specialists are already worried about the amazingly rapid spread of the condition and warn that the diabetes will kill by 2007 as many persons all around the world as the HIV infection. And even if the number of those killed by diabetes has reached the number of those killed by AIDS, not all the deaths caused by diabetes and its complications (nephropathy, heart attack, limb amputation, neuropathies and others) are taken into account.

In 2000, the number of diabetes patients registered worldwide was of about 171 millions, but since then their number has increased considerably from year to year.

It is estimated that by 2010 the number of the diabetes patients will be more than 220 million and that by 2030, the value would reach approximately 366 million people suffering from this condition.

The incidence of the diabetes will increase by 80% in Africa and 100% in Latin America, whereas in Europe, the level will increase just by 18% during the next 20 years, and in some countries of the European Union the number of diabetes patients could reach levels of 6.22 %.

But the causes of the number increase are different from one region to another: while in some areas it is due to the adoption of a western unhealthy diet and a more sedentary life style due to urbanization, in Europe and North America, the wider spread of the disease could also be linked to the increase of the lifespan of the diabetes patients due to new improved drugs, besides the previous factors.

This epidemics or even world pandemics of the diabetes will bring severe consequences on the work productivity.