Monday, June 7, 2010

Diabetes: Keeping Control Of This Current Epidemic Is Not Going To Be Straightforward

By Tommie Howard

Diabetes is a disease that no one should suffer from, yet it has become something of an epidemic in the US. When it affects you, the results are very worrying as it will result in serious illnesses that can lead to blindness as well as kidney failure and it also results in untimely deaths. Furthermore, the care and treatment of this illness is costing the US far more than it is spending on its wars and the total cost of treating the deadly disease is believed to be more than 170 million dollars each year.

This in turn will mean that when you look at the costs of treating diabetes you will find that the US has spent more on the disease than on its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and also in its war on terrorism. As a matter of fact even the one hundred and fifty million dollars that were spent in dealing with the ravages of Hurricane Katrina is less than what the country is spending on this most fearful and dreaded disease.

All these costs are being incurred because of the burgeoning numbers of Americans that are becoming diabetic. In fact, annually, over a million American citizens have become diabetic and are swelling the ranks of those who are already affected by the disease. This disease is not just a huge problem because it is leading to more people becoming overweight and it is the leading cause of obesity as well.

The treatment of this awful disease has drained the economy and it is especially severe in terms of paying to treat the condition and it has also caused a lot of loss of productivity that in fact has gone up by about 32 percent since 2002.

This deadly disease has also accounted for more than two hundred and eight thousand American fatalities in just the year 2009 and the treatment of this disease costs the US more than the cost of treating cancer, the treatment of which meant spending more than two hundred billion dollars in 2006.

Another major worry for America is that even those who are free from this condition will have to end up paying for the cost of treating those who are diabetics. The cost of routine treatment including paying for doctor visits and purchasing medications may not be very significant but the cost of treating the disease that cannot be controlled will significantly rise as the costs of dialysis as well as transplanting kidneys is prohibitively high.

Whats more, over half of the costs of providing care for those who are diabetic is centered on treating patients in hospitals where they have to be admitted in order to get suitable care.

Even the future is not bright because it is expected that more and more Americans are going to become diabetic and there are already significant numbers of them who are in pre diabetic stage.

The future of America is also going to be badly affected by the disease because huge sums of money will have to be diverted to controlling this epidemic that could otherwise have been spent on education and development. In fact, in the next few decades, stats and the government may be crippled with having to spend a lot of money in controlling the diabetes epidemic that is going to overwhelm America.

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