Diabetes killing every 7 seconds

Diabetes afflicts 366 million people, killing one every seven seconds, according to the International Diabetes Federation, which said new estimates of the global burden should spur greater action from world leaders.

The number of sufferers was pegged at 285 million worldwide in 2009. Since then, China reported 92.4 million people with the condition, more than double the federation's estimate. That's helped ratchet up health care spending on diabetes to $465 billion, federation officials said at a recent European Association for the Study of Diabetes conference in Lisbon.

“This emphasizes how we've been underestimating the prevalence of diabetes,” Andrew Boulton, president-elect of EASD and a professor of medicine at the University of Manchester, said. “All the figures, even those we've mentioned today, are going to be an underestimate.”

The findings were released before world leaders meet at the United Nations in New York to discuss a global plan to fight diabetes, heart attack, cancer and other so-called non- communicable diseases. Surging rates of chronic illnesses threaten economic growth and undermine social and economic development, governments said in a draft political declaration.

“Diabetes is a massive challenge the world can no longer afford to ignore,” Jean Claude Mbanya, the federation's president, said in a statement. “The clock is ticking for the world's leaders. We expect action from their meeting next week at the U.N. that will halt diabetes' relentlessly upward trajectory.”

The federation, an umbrella group of more than 200 national associations, estimates 4.6 million people die annually because of diabetes. Four of every five people with the disease live in developing countries, with most affected men and women being of working age, it said last year.