Abstract:
Statistical epidemiology and economic burden of Diabetes Mellitus
Diabetes will be the seventh foremost reason of death in 2030 due to an exponential
increase in affected peoples from 347 million adults in 2015 to 400 million adults by 2030
as per WHO database. The global economic burden caused by diabetes is rising massively
due to very complicate management of the disease. The estimated global healthcare
expenditure behind diabetes treatment without including indirect cost such as lost work
time, has arrived to 548 billion U.S. dollar (USD) in 2013 which is expected to increase to
627 billion USD in 2035 [1]. These account approximately 12% of the world’s total health
expenditure with on an average 1330 USD to be spent on each diabetic person as an
anticipated per capita health expenditure [2]. There remains a great discrepancy in health
expenses for diabetes among developed and developing countries from 198.0 billion USD
to 1.3 million USD, respectively. The highest total expenditure, 57.2% of global
expenditure, will be spend by United States of America whilst India, the country with the
largest number of people affected with diabetes will spend an estimated 2.8 billion USD
which is less than 1% of the world’s total expenditure. According to the trend it is estimated
that Asia will contribute more than 60% of the world’s diabetic population. The high
prevalence of diabetes in Asians compared to other European countries recently posed an
interesting mysterious question in minds of Asian scientists to search for. The investigation
postulate multiple factors to be responsible such as strong ethnic and genetic inclination
towards diabetes, a lower thresholds for epigenetic risk factors, changing lifestyle and food
intake due to socio-economic growth, industrialization and urbanization resulting in
diabetes at early stage in children and adults both accompanied by lower body mass index
and large waist circumference as compared to western population [3]. Consequently,
complications of diabetes are becoming more common and raising economic burden in
developing Asian countries with poor strata of society. This situation subjugates the
national endeavours towards early and reliable diagnosis, efficacious treatment and
preventive measures against diabetes.
