Doctors identified a disease that reduces life by nine years
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Based on the results of large-scale experiments that were conducted in China, it was found that patients with diabetes, due to the characteristics of the disease, lose about 9 years of their life.
With the relevant conclusions of specialists can be found on the pages of the scientific periodical JAMA.
Recently, in China, diabetes has become one of the main medical problems, because the incidence of the disease has exceeded the previous figures by almost four times. According to statistics, at the moment no fewer than a hundred million patients suffer from diabetes. With this in mind, a team of scientists, led by Dr. Chen Zhenmin (University of Oxford), conducted a study of the incidence of diabetes and the overall mortality rate in China. Scientists got acquainted with the history of the disease at least half a million patients in the age category of 30-79 years who lived respectively in five districts of the city and five rural areas. Control of their state of health was assessed continuously for ten years. Among the participants in the experiment were people with various health problems: in particular, 6% of them suffered from diabetes.
According to the results of the experiment it was possible to find out that patients suffering from diabetes did not survive to a certain age and died 50% more often than other participants. At the same time, a higher mortality was observed among the inhabitants of the country's rural areas.
Scientists have determined that the death rate from diabetes exceeded the percentage of deaths from heart failure, cerebral circulation, kidney, liver, malignant tumors in the breast or pancreas, as well as from infectious and inflammatory diseases.
In addition, experts made an additional, but not less important conclusion: the greatest number of deaths from diabetes was caused by acute complications of the disease.
It has also been estimated that people with diabetes who permanently reside in rural areas of China reduce their life expectancy by about ten years. Urban residents, who were diagnosed with this disease, lived on average 8 years less.
"Along with the rapid spread of the incidence of diabetes among young people and middle-aged people, it can be assumed that further mortality rates are likely to only increase. A positive forecast is possible only if the government takes up the implementation of specific preventive measures. Only in this way can we try to stop and further control the incidence among the population of the country, "the authors of the study commented.
If world statistics are to be believed, at present about 2-3% of the world population suffers from diabetes. The total number of patients with this disease in the world is about 400 million people. In this case, three new cases of diabetes are recorded every 10 seconds.
Annually, as a result of diabetic complications, up to 4.5 million patients die.
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