7th April, 2008

Around 700,000 Australians has clinically diagnosed diabetes in 2004-05, according to a report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare late last month.

Yet, while the report - Diabetes: Australian Facts 2008 - shows that the proportion of people with diagnosed diabetes more than doubled between 1989 and 2005, the AIHW believes that it remains likely the number of people with the disease could be much higher.

Other findings show:
• diabetes contributed to one in 11 deaths in Australia in 2005;
• the poorest Australians and indigenous Australians both had significantly higher hospitalisation and death rates as a result of the disease than the general population; and,
• people born in South -East Europe, North Africa and the Middle East had particularly high death rates.

The AIHW say that while the rise in the disease - which can lead to heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, amputations, oral health problems and impotence - is being largely driven by an increase in the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes, Type 1 and gestational diabetes are also on the rise.

The report also found that diabetes and complications arising from it led to 500,000 hospitalisations in 2004-05 and accounted for almost two per cent of health expenditure the same year.

- DAVID ADAMS

~ www.aihw.gov.au