Why Is Diabetes On The Rise In The UK?

The incidences of diabetes are on the rise in the UK and the disease currently affects around three million people. On top of this, a further seven million people are neglecting their wellbeing to the extent that they are at high risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. The charity Diabetes UK has warned that if even a fraction of these people were to develop the disease, this would place a huge burden on the NHS. As it is, it is believed that around 850,000 people in the UK are actually living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes. This is a rise of 132,000 when compared to figures from the previous year.

There are two factors which are believed to contribute to these shocking statistics, and that is the fact that the UK’s population is an ageing one, and also the rising rates of obesity amongst the UK population.

Since 1996, the official figures on those whose wellness is compromised by the serious illness have almost doubled. Back in 1996, there were around 1.4 million adults living with diabetes. That has more than doubled to over three million. Of these, around 90% are type 2 diabetes. Based on these figures, experts believe that by the year 2024, over five million people in the UK will have a form of diabetes.

Experts have warned that this type of increase in the number of people suffering the disease could place an immeasurable burden on health services in the UK. They emphasise that much more work is needed to be done on preventing type 2 diabetes before it becomes a health epidemic of this scale.

Leading figures of the charity Diabetes UK have stated the importance of identifying those who are at risk of Type 2 diabetes and helping them to make important lifestyle changes before they fall victim to diabetes.