(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Millions of people worldwide may be at risk of early death from diabetes and related cardiovascular illnesses because of poor diagnosis and ineffective treatment, according to this study.

In the United States alone, nearly 90% of adult diabetics – more than 16 million adults aged 35 and older – have blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol that are not treated effectively and don’t meet the healthy standards.

"Too many people are not being properly diagnosed with diabetes and related cardiovascular risk factors. Those who are diagnosed aren't being effectively treated," Dr. Stephen Lim, one of the study's co-authors and an Associate Professor of Global Health at IHME, was quoted as saying. "This is a huge missed opportunity to lower the burden of disease in both rich and poor countries."

In an attempt to determine the cause of the low rates of diagnosis and effective treatment, researchers examined a range of factors and found that there were no inequalities in diagnosis and treatment of diabetes related to socioeconomic status.

"We were very surprised to see that wealth did not have a big impact on diagnosis and treatment," Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou, the paper's lead author and an Associate Professor of Global Health at IHME, was quoted as saying. "And in the three countries where we had health insurance data, we thought it was noteworthy that health insurance actually played a much bigger role than wealth, especially in the US."

In the US, people who had insurance were twice as likely to be diagnosed and effectively treated for diabetes as those who did not have insurance.

The researchers said the findings underscore the need for countries to tackle the growing problem of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), in part by gathering better data.

"We don't have enough data from actual physical exams to accurately document the trend in most countries," Dr. Rafael Lozano, a co-author on the paper and a Professor of Global Health at IHME, was quoted as saying.

"We looked at surveys from nearly 200 countries and only could find data on blood glucose, cholesterol, or blood pressure in seven. We hope that in the build-up to the UN Summit on NCDs this September, countries will make a commitment to more surveys that take blood samples from a representative percentage of the population."


SOURCE: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, published online March 1, 2011