DIABETES DRUGS BILL SOARS TO £1BN-A-YEAR
Biggest threat to nation’s health as 53.4m prescriptions dished out
DIABETES is now the biggest threat to Britain’s health with the latest figures showing record numbers of people are on medication, experts have warned.
The crisis is laid bare in data revealing that 53.4 million prescriptions handed out by GPs were for a condition fuelled by the UK’s obesity crisis – at a cost of more than £1billion a year.
NHS figures show that the number of items
prescribed for the debilitating condition has increased every year since 2007/08.
Robin Hewings, of Diabetes UK, said: “Diabetes is the biggest threat to the health of our country.
“The number of people diagnosed has doubled in the last 20 years and it is responsible for 26,000 early deaths a year alongside serious complications such as blindness, amputation or stroke.
“This data shows that diabetes prescribing costs £1billion but it is estimated the total cost to the NHS is over £10billion a year so the real price we have to pay for diabetes is not medications, but the devastating and expensive complications.”
NHS Digital revealed yesterday that doctors in England spent £8.8billion prescribing drugs in 2017/18 of which more than £1billion was for diabetes. Of that £476million was spent on antidiabetic drugs, £350million on insulin and £181million on diagnostic and monitoring devices.
The scale of the crisis is now so vast 10 per cent of the entire health service budget is ploughed into battling the condition, equal to around £1million an hour.
One of the most commonly prescribed diabetes drugs is metformin which was dished out 21,163,271 times in 2017.
Type 1, an autoimmune disease suffered by Prime Minister Theresa May, occurs when the pancreas, a small gland behind the stomach, fails to produce insulin – the hormone regulating blood glucose levels. If the amount of glucose is too high it can, over time, damage vital organs.
Just 10 per cent of all sufferers have Type 1, but it is the most common sort of childhood diabetes.
But in Type 2, the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin or the cells do not react to insulin meaning glucose remains in the bloodstream and is not used as fuel for energy. It now affects one in 10 adults with cases soaring due to our obsession with convenience foods. The debilitating condition is usually triggered by unhealthy living with fast and processed foods, sweets, cakes and biscuits causing blood sugar levels to soar.
Around four million are blighted by both types of diabetes, but a further 12 million living chronically unhealthy lifestyles are at increased risk of Type 2. It means 25 per cent of the UK population has, or could develop, an illness that can kill.
Dr Aseem Malhotra, NHS cardiologist and professor of evidence based medicine, said: “These statistics are shockingly disturbing which highlights the urgency of Type 2 reversal which is possible through pure dietary change in up to 60 per cent of patients. What patients and doctors also need to know is the drug management for Type 2 doesn’t prolong lifespan and comes with side effects which can make quality of life worse and increase hospital admissions.”
The number of people being treated for Type 2, normally only seen in adults and linked to obesity, has rocketed 40 per cent in four years. Some in the UK have been struck down as young as nine when the killer condition used to only affect those in their mid-40s.
A decade ago no child in Britain had the disease but more than 700 are now receiving specialist treatment because of the food they eat.
Vascular surgeon Martin Claridge said: “The cost of these treatments and their ongoing care will continue to rise and as a society we appear to be sleep walking into this crisis, watching as the next generation
develops metabolic disease earlier and earlier in their lives [it used to be rare below the age of 40 years]. We are spending millions of pounds and using huge quantities of health care resource fire-fighting the complications of Type 2 and yet not acknowledging nor dealing with the underlying causes that could prevent the disease increasing in incidence. This is at huge cost to the individuals themselves and society as a whole.”
Professor Helen StokesLampard, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “For many patients with diabetes, medication is essential to help them manage their condition and live a good quality of life.
“But we also know making straightforward lifestyle changes, for example, eating a healthy and balanced diet, losing weight and exercising more can prevent, delay, or sometimes even reverse Type 2.” Professor Jonathan Valabhji, national clinical director for diabetes and obesity at NHS England, said: “Thanks to better diagnosis and treatment, the NHS is caring for more people than ever before with diabetes and this new data highlights the urgent need to prevent Type 2 from developing in the first place. The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme has now reached over a quarter of a million people at high risk of Type 2.”