Diabetes still on the rise, but the rate of heart disease in adult diabetics is falling

Despite the worrying increase in the number of adults and children with diabetes across the world, the rate of cardiovascular disease among those with type 2 diabetes (90 percent of cases) has decreased by 20 percent, according to a Swedish study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

According to a study on diabetes rates in youths published in the New England Journal of Medicine, between 2002 and 2012, the incidence of type 1 diabetes (an auto-immune condition which destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas) increased overall by 1.8 percent per year, with respective growth of 4.2 percent and 1.2 percent in Hispanic and non-Hispanic white youths.

The incidence of type 2 diabetes (a condition in which blood sugar levels remain high over a prolonged period of time, often associated with obesity and lifestyle choices such as poor diet and lack of exercise) increased by 4.8 percent between 2002 and 2012, most notably because of the obesity epidemic among young people.

The study revealed that the annual increase was particularly significant in children from minority racial and ethnic groups: respectively 6.3 percent, 8.5 percent and 9 percent in those from African-American, Asian and Native American families.

A second Swedish study, published in the same journal, investigated the health of adult diabetics. 37,000 type 1 diabetics and over 457,000 type 2 diabetics, included in the Swedish National Diabetes Register between 2008 and 2012, were followed until 2014.

The researchers at Gothenburg University in Sweden noted a 40 percent reduction in the rate of cardiovascular disease among type 1 diabetics and 20 percent among type 2 diabetics, compared to people in good health.

Adult diabetics often experience cardiovascular and renal complications. Reducing the risk of these complications involves better control of blood sugar levels, and paying greater attention to the associated risks, namely excess weight, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, smoking and a lack of exercise.

In 1980, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that there were 5.53 million diabetics in the US. The study says that this figure has almost quadrupled to 29 million.

Despite this rise, management of the condition appears to be improving. The study suggests that progress in treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol levels have helped to improve the health of these patients.

However, diabetes is still a very serious global problem, causing around 12 percent of deaths in the US.