The number of diabetes cases in the U.K. is rising faster than in the U.S. and Canada, where the disease is the most widespread, researchers found.
Scientists who studied a database of patients and their ailments in the U.K. between 1997 and 2003 found that the number of new diabetes cases grew 74 percent, according to a study published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
People’s expanding waistlines are probably responsible for part of the increase, Elvira Masso Gonzalez from the Spanish Centre for Pharmaco-epidemiological Research in Madrid wrote in the study. Diabetes, a disorder characterized by the body’s inability to regulate blood-sugar levels, is claiming more victims as the world’s population ages, eats fattier diets and leads a more sedentary life.
“Further research is needed to clarify the potential links between the rising incidence of diabetes and the rising incidence of obesity,” Masso Gonzales wrote. “It would also be interesting to investigate further the links between diabetes and other lifestyle factors.”
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 180 million people worldwide have diabetes and links the disease to about 3 million deaths annually.
The researchers used a U.K. database containing almost 5 million medical records for the study. The number of new cases of Type 1 diabetes, a form of the disease often diagnosed in childhood in which the body does not produce insulin, showed little change over the decade studied.
The number of cases of Type 2 diabetes, a more common condition in which the body becomes resistant to insulin later in life, climbed 69 percent. Insulin is the chemical messenger the body normally makes to regulate how glucose, a key source of energy, gets to cells.
AstraZeneca Plc, which is developing two experimental diabetes pills with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., funded the research.