Diabetes Cases to Double, Costs to Triple by 2034

In the next 25 years, the number of Americans living with diabetes will nearly double, increasing from 23.7 million in 2009 to 44.1 million in 2034. Over the same period, spending on diabetes will almost triple, rising from $113 billion to $336 billion, even with no increase in the prevalence of obesity, researchers based at the University of Chicago report in Diabetes Care.

The number of those with diabetes covered by Medicare will rise from 8.2 million to 14.6 million, the researchers predict. Medicare spending on diabetes will jump from $45 billion to $171 billion.

"If we don't change our diet and exercise habits or find new, more effective and less expensive ways to prevent and treat diabetes, we will find ourselves in a lot of trouble as a population," says the study's lead author Elbert Huang, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

"Without significant changes in public or private strategies," the authors wrote, "this population and cost growth are expected to add a significant strain to an overburdened healthcare system."

The new estimates are far more rigorous, and more troubling, than previous predictions. The most recent and alarming prediction may even be a bit conservative. It is based on the assumption that the prevalence of the overweight and obese in the United States will remain relatively stable.

Although obesity levels have gone up steadily for many years, the authors predict that the obesity levels for the nondiabetic population will top out in the next decade, then decline slightly, from 30% today to about 27% by 2033. "Despite recent trends in obesity rates," Huang explains, "we anticipate that the population will reach an equilibrium in obesity levels, since we cannot all become obese."

Source: University of Chicago Medical Center