Every 6 seconds a person dies of diabetes in the world. Diabetes is undoubtedly the disease of the 21st century, it affects about 380 million people worldwide, in Spain we are already at almost 4 million cases, and it is estimated that in 20 years one in ten people will have diabetes. Today is World Diabetes Day, and we took the opportunity to consult one of the leading experts in diabetes, Dr. Pilar Martín Vaquero, of the D-Medical Center.
The figures show that “diabetes is a chronic disease with a worldwide projection that is becoming an ‘epidemic’ due to the growing figures of obesity among the Western population and the adoption of Western habits in emerging countries”, as stated by Dr. Martín Vaquero. This growing number of cases will turn diabetes into a serious problem for society as a whole because “it will entail healthcare costs that will overwhelm any economy if the appropriate measures are not taken to reduce and control this scourge”.
Dr. Martín Vaquero warns that “the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in its 2011 report, estimated the healthcare costs of Diabetes in Spain at 9.3 billion €/year, and this was based on the prevalence of the disease at 8.1% of the population, when it is already known that the reality is much higher (13.8%). The direct health costs associated with diabetes are due to personnel costs, medicines and health services, while the indirect costs are due to loss of work productivity due to absenteeism, sick leave, early retirement and premature death. It is a paradox that in Spain indirect costs are 3 times higher than direct costs, and this is due to the chronic complications that patients present because their disease has been poorly controlled (vascular, renal, neurological diseases, among others)”.
The importance of prevention
To prevent this number of cases from continuing to increase, prevention plays a fundamental role. “It is necessary to carry out obesity prevention programs, nutritional education programs in children and adults, and diabetes education programs, and only in this way will the medical and, therefore, economic problems of diabetes be reduced”. For all these reasons, Dr. Martín Vaquero considers that “we must demand greater investment in direct healthcare costs from the Ministry of Health; this is the only way to reduce indirect costs”.
Controlling oneself and trusting in medical advances
As an expert in diabetes, we asked Dr. Martín Vaquero for some advice for patients suffering from this disease: “that they control themselves well, because if they do, they will not suffer, or will do so in a very mild way, from the chronic complications that a poorly controlled disease entails”. In addition, Martín Vaquero opens a door to a better future and asks diabetics “to have hope that in the coming years we will see very important advances that will improve their quality of life”.