As U.S. diabetics live longer, the costs of care are rising

More Americans are developing diabetes during their adult lives and living longer with the disease, a new government study finds. The consequences of those developments include a potentially huge cost burden for the country's health system tasked with providing long-term care for those with this chronic disease.

Approximately 40% of those ages 20 and over were found to be at a lifetime risk of developing diabetes in 2011, according to an analysis, the findings of which were authored by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published online Wednesday in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.

The study reviewed health information from more than 600,000 adults between 1985 and 2011 and found the lifetime risk of developing diabetes had increased by 21 percentage points for men and by 13 percentage points for women since 1985.

The risks were greater among certain ethnic minorities. Hispanic men and women as well as black women had more than a 50% likelihood of developing diabetes over the course of their lives, the study found.

Though the prevalence of diabetes has increased, the study found that those diagnosed with diabetes at age 40 were living an average of as much as three years longer. The number of life years lost to the disease had decreased from 7.7 years in 1990 to 5.8 in 2011 in men and from 8.7 years to 6.8 years in women during the same period.

Collectively however, the average number of life years lost due to diabetes increased by 46% in the male population and by 44% for women between 1990 and 2011, primarily because of the increased prevalence of the disease. The number of years spent living with diabetes increased by 156% in men and 70% in women, according to the study.

The study did not specify what type of diabetes had increased in prevalence, but it is understood that at least 90% of the more than 29 million Americans living with the disease have Type 2, primarily because of the increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese.

Diabetes was estimated to cost the U.S. roughly $245 billion in 2012, including $176 billion in direct medical costs and $69 billion in reduced work productivity, according to the CDC's National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2014 (PDF).

Average medical expenditures for those diagnosed with diabetes were more than two times higher than those without diabetes.

Diabetes was the cause for as many as 37 million visits to a health provider in 2010, according to agency figures, as well as an estimated 635,000 hospital discharges where the average length of stay was more than four days.

“Continued increases in the incidence of diagnosed diabetes combined with declining mortality have led to an acceleration of lifetime risk and more years spent with diabetes, but fewer years lost to the disease for the average individual with diabetes,” authors wrote. “These findings mean that there will be a continued need for health services and extensive costs to manage the disease, and emphasize the need for effective interventions to reduce incidence.”

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