From Capsil Wiki

The epidemic of diabetes is directly tied to the explosion of obesity. Diabetes has been raised both in the EU, US, OECD and WHO as a major epidemic that needs to be stemmed.

The following figure shows the situation in the US which is particularly bad. The rate of people suffering with diabetes (type 2) is growing exponentially and the associated cost to the healthcare system is therefore rising dramatically. Unless action is taken, by 2025 and beyond the problem of diabetes will reach unmanageable proportions and entire healthcare systems will fail.

Similarly on a global level, there can be seen a dramatic rise in diabetes onset as a direct result of obesity and population overweight (other factors do of course contribute such as smoking and alcohol abuse however they are not proportionate to the effects of obesity).

Diabetes-Hard Facts

• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates (2) that more than 180 million people worldwide have diabetes. This number is likely to more than double by 2030.
• In 2005, an estimated 1.1 million people died from diabetes.1
• Almost 80% of diabetes deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.
• Almost half of diabetes deaths occur in people under the age of 70 years; 55% of diabetes deaths are in women.
• WHO projects that diabetes deaths will increase by more than 50% in the next 10 years without urgent action. Most notably, diabetes deaths are projected to increase by over 80% in upper-middle income countries between 2006 and 2015
• Already it is accepted in US government forecasts that one in three children born in the USA during the 21st century will develop type 2 diabetes.
• The childhood obesity epidemic will increase these problems even further.
• Given the increase in obesity by 2025, the lifetime risk of getting diabetes for those Americans born in the year 2000 will be over 40 percent.

References

1.Source Institute for Alternate Futures and OECD Health Data 2008