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.