‘Record high’ two million people at type II diabetes risk

New NHS figures have revealed that approximately two million people in England are at risk of developing Type II diabetes, the highest on record.

The new figures show that there are 1,969,610 people registered with a GP who have non-diabetic hyperglycaemia, a condition which puts people at high risk of type II, which is the highest on record.

The organisation also says that the scale of the problem is likely to be even greater, as the growing obesity crisis is exposing millions more to the condition.

On the contrary, last month NHS England announced that those taking part in its NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme had lost a whopping combined weight of 185,051kg; equivalent to the weight of 43 ambulances.

Further, 89,604 people have now finished the programme, marking the service as a world first of its kind to have achieved a full national roll-out.

NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens said that our “bulging waistlines” mean that “two million people are now at risk of joining the expanding ranks of those living with largely preventable type II diabetes.

“The NHS’s highly successful, world-leading diabetes prevention programme is helping hundreds of thousands of people take small common sense steps to get control of their own health. But unless many more of us make a change, obesity-related illnesses will end up costing hundreds of thousands more lives and billions of pounds in higher treatment costs.”

Recently, it was unveiled that over half (54%) of GPs and nurses who treat type II diabetics do not carry out the recommended annual Urine Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio (UACR) test.

Diabetes is estimated to cost the NHS £14 billion per year, and over 80% of those costs are the result of managing complications of the disease, including those associated with the kidney and the heart.

Projections show that the growing number of people with diabetes could result in nearly 39,000 people living with diabetes suffering a heart attack in 2035 and over 50,000 people suffering a stroke and one in six hospital beds are occupied with someone with diabetes.