Prevention Matters

The number of Americans with diabetes will nearly double over the next 25 years, while the cost of care will almost triple, as patients live longer and develop more of the disease’s long-term complications, a new analysis said.


The projections, which were published in the December issue of the journal Diabetes Care, estimate that the population will rise to 44.1 million in 2034, from 23.7 million now, with medical spending increasing to $336 billion from $113 billion.

“In 25 years, there’s going to be this convergence of the population getting older but also many people having had diabetes for a long period of time, and that will lead to higher costs,” said Dr. Elbert S. Huang, the lead author of the paper, who is part of a University of Chicago diabetes research team. “Duration of diabetes is as important a predictor of complications as glucose.”