Adults with diabetes die
earlier and suffer longer with disabilities than men and women without
the blood-sugar disease, researchers are reporting. Type 1 and
type 2 diabetes will shorten the lives of 50-year-old men and women by
more than three years. And only about 13 of their remaining years will
be disability-free, the new study found.
"People
with diabetes are spending a significant proportion of life with
disability," said lead researcher Dianna Magliano. She is head of the
diabetes and population health laboratory at Baker IDI Heart and
Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
Elevated blood sugar
levels associated with diabetes lead to blood vessel complications that
can cause vision loss, movement problems and amputations. Other
disabilities not usually tied to diabetes include a decline in brain
functioning, Magliano said.
"We need to undertake research to
understand the mechanisms by which diabetes leads to disability," she
added. "This will then help with the development of strategies to
prevent disability in diabetes, which in turn may lead to more years
lived disability-free."
The researchers estimated life
expectancy and years lived with disability using data from Australian
diabetes and death registries.
At age 50, a diabetic man can
expect to live another 30 years, on average -- about 17 of them with
disability. A woman that age with diabetes will likely live about 34
years, but she will be burdened with disabilities for roughly 21 of
those years, the study authors estimated.
Compared to their
healthy peers, diabetic men will lose 8.2 years of living without
disability and women 9.1 years, the researchers said.
Another diabetes expert who wasn't involved in the research welcomed the study.
"The
worldwide epidemic of diabetes continues, so the findings from
Australia are not surprising," said Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the
Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
In
the United States, one-third of patients with diabetes are not even
aware they have the disease, he said, and one-third who are aware of
having the disease are not treated.
"The sad news is that the
ones that are treated are not treated at goal, and less than half have
their blood sugar controlled, and 80 to 90 percent are not treated for
high blood pressure or high cholesterol," Zonszein said.
Nonetheless, the survival and disability-free survival of patients with diabetes have improved significantly, he pointed out.
"This
study is another wake-up call to revise our current practice," Zonszein
said. He noted that the United States doesn't do enough to prevent
diabetes.
"We have the tools to provide an earlier and more aggressive treatment for this common disease," he said.
Type
2 diabetes is linked to an unhealthy lifestyle and obesity. The study
did not distinguish between people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. But
because type 2 is far more common, the findings mostly pertain to people
with that form of the disease. However, the authors noted that because
the onset of type 1 diabetes usually occurs early in life, people with
type 1 may have more complications and possibly a higher risk of
disability.
Prevention measures for type 2 diabetes generally
include lifestyle changes, such as weight loss, exercise, a healthy diet
and not smoking.
More than 400 million people worldwide have
diabetes, with most nations reporting sharp increases in recent decades,
due to rising rates of obesity, according to background notes in the
report. And, approximately one-third of people 25 or younger are likely
to eventually develop diabetes, the study authors said.
source--usnews
No comments:
Post a Comment