CANBERRA, July 13 — The number of Australians living with diabetes has tripled over the last 20 years, according to government data, reported Xinhua.
According to a report published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) on Wednesday, more than 1.3 million Australians, or 4.3 per cent of the population, were known to have diabetes in 2020, up from 460,000 in 2000.
The institute said the increase amounted to one Australian being diagnosed with diabetes every eight minutes over the 20-year period.
Diabetes refers to a group of diseases characterised by high blood glucose levels.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for more than 90 per cent of the cases in Australia, affecting 1.2 million people in 2020.
The AIHW report found diabetes was the underlying cause of more than 5,000 deaths in 2020 and a contributing factor to another 12,300.
“Numbers have stabilised in the last decade; however, 1 in 20 Australians were living with the condition in 2020,” AIHW spokesperson Richard Juckes said in a statement.
According to him, diabetes increases the risk of health complications, including heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and lower limb amputation. It is also frequently associated with other chronic health conditions.
“The prevalence of diabetes varies, depending on where people live. After adjusting for age, Australians living in remote and very remote areas were 1.3 times more likely to be living with diabetes and 1.8 times more likely to die with diabetes compared to those living in major cities,” said Juckes.
Diabetes accounted for AU$3 billion (US$2.03 billion) of health system expenditure in 2018-19, representing 2.3 per cent of the total disease expenditure.
