New analysis by Diabetes UK has shown that one person is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every three minutes in England and Wales.
It found 202,665 people were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in England and Wales in 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That amounts to 23 people every hour. A further 16,216 people were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in Scotland during the same time period. Statistics are not available for Northern Ireland.
The analysis was published to coincide with Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Week at the start of April to raise awareness about the NHS England Diabetes Prevention Programme’s Healthier You programme, a free service to help people reduce their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes UK has teamed up with NHS England and is encouraging people to find out their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by using the Know Your Risk tool.
The rate of new type 2 diabetes diagnoses is being fuelled by the obesity epidemic, says DUK. Three in five adults in the UK are overweight or obese. While other factors like age and ethnicity affect a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, being overweight is the most significant modifiable risk factor, and accounts for 80–85% of an individual’s risk.
NHS England currently spends 10% of its annual budget on treating diabetes and its associated complications. If nothing changes this will increase as more people develop the condition. Nine out of ten people diagnosed with diabetes have Type 2.
Chris Askew, Chief Executive at Diabetes UK, said: ‘One person being diagnosed every three minutes illustrates the frightening speed at which the number of people living with type 2 diabetes is increasing. However, three in five cases [could] be prevented or delayed by achieving a healthy weight. ‘We need urgent action to prevent as many of the 12.3 million people at increased risk of type 2 diabetes from developing the condition. The first step is helping people understand their risk using the Diabetes UK Know Your Risk tool. The second is giving people the knowledge and resources necessary to help them reduce their risk by eating healthily, moving more and losing weight if necessary.’
Dr Partha Kar, associated clinical director for diabetes for NHS England said: ‘These figures underline the importance of wider action on obesity prevention, and confirm the importance of the action set out in the NHS Long Term Plan including expanding the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Programme so that 200,000 people every year can benefit, and introducing a pilot of very low calorie diets that have been shown to put Type 2 diabetes into remission in a significant proportion of those that already have it.’
The Diabetes UK Know Your Risk tool is a free, online test available at https://riskscore.diabetes.org.uk/start
NICE APPROVES FOURTH SGLT2 INHIBITOR
Ertugliflozin (Steglatro®) has become the fourth SGLT2 inhibitor to be approved for NHS use in patients with type 2 diabetes as monotherapy when metformin is contraindicated or not tolerated, or as dual therapy with metformin.
Erugliflozin has demonstrated effective glycaemic control, and reductions in blood pressure and weight comparable to other SGLT2 inhibitors.
NICE based its guidance on three trials, VERTIS-MONO, VERTIS-MET and VERTIS-FACTORIAL, which showed significant improvements in HbA1c with ertugliflozin compared with placebo as monotherapy or as part of a dual therapy regimen. The effects of ertugliflozin on cardiovascular outcomes are being studied in the VERTIS CV trial in 8,237 patients, which is expected to be completed late in 2019.
