Page 12 - 51 the significance--29.2_opt

drug management of diabetes (to control hyperglycaemia), costing
the NHS £458 million. In 2009-2010 this had risen by more than 40% to
34
more than 35.5 million different items prescribed, at a cost of nearly
£650 million.
34
The largest increase in diabetes prevalence is predicted to occur in
India and China. By 2030, there are predicted to be 62 million and 87
million people with diabetes in China and India, respectively. The
26
WHO estimates that in the period 2006–2015, China will lose $558 billion
in national income due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone. A
2007 study from India shows that total, annual median expenditure on
diabetes health care was $227 in urban areas and $142 in rural areas.
35
This not may seem a great deal, but when we consider that the mean
annual income in urban areas is $2,273 and $818 in rural areas we get
a sense of how economically debilitating this condition is for people
in developing countries. People with diabetes in urban India spend
35
around a tenth of their income on diabetes healthcare, whereas those
in rural areas spend around a fifth. In developing countries, grinding
poverty and an extreme shortage of state healthcare collude to reveal
the huge burden of diabetes.
Societal burden

Aside from the obvious economic burden of T2DM there are the nega-
tive impacts on society that are much harder to quantify. The compli-
cations of T2DM and the treatments patients have to take for the rest
of their life can lead to depression, which has ramifications for the way
in which an individual interacts with family and friends. Similarly, family
members may be placed under great pressure by the need to juggle
family life, their career and the needs of a spouse or child with T2DM.
Quantifying these aspects of the T2DM burden is practically impossible,
but they must be considered in the development of disease manage-
ment strategies and in attempts to define the full impact of the disease.

12