Up to 24,000 people with diabetes are dying each year in the UK from causes that could be avoided through better management of their condition.
The first ever report into mortality from the National Diabetes Audit shows about three quarters of the 24,000 people with diabetes who die each year are aged 65 and over.
However, the gap in death rates between those who have and do not have diabetes becomes more and more extreme with younger age.
About one in 3,300 women in England will die between the ages of 15 to 34; but this risk increases nine-fold among women with type 1 diabetes to one in 360, and six-fold among women with type 2 diabetes to one in 520.
A similar picture is true for young men with diabetes; men aged 15 to 34 in the English population are much more likely to die than women – at one in every 1,530; but this risk rises four-fold for men with type 1 diabetes to one in 360, and by just under four-fold among those with type 2 diabetes to one in 430.
Audit lead clinician Dr Bob Young, consultant diabetologist and clinical lead for the National Diabetes Information Service, said: “For the first time we have a reliable measure of the huge impact of diabetes on early death. Many of these early deaths could be prevented. The rate of new diabetes is increasing every year. So, if there are no changes, the impact of diabetes on national mortality will increase. Doctors, nurses and the NHS working in partnership with people who have diabetes should be able to improve these grim statistics.”
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Tags: Diabetes
