Melanie Davies, professor of Diabetes Medicine at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, has said over million people are affected by diabetes in the country.

Davies said based on the 2014-15 GP patient data, there are  4.05 million people with diabetes condition, including 3.5 million adults who have been diagnosed, an increase of 65 per cent over the past decade and around 120,000 more than the previous year.

There are thought to be 549,000 with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, Sky News reported.

He said, “The 4 million figure is not surprising but quite alarming. There are also lots of people at very high risk of developing diabetes over the next five to 10 years. The large driver is the increase in the number of people with type 2 diabetes, associated with obesity.

“We know that we have an ageing population so of course there are lots of ageing people with diabetes, but we’re seeing in the [Leicester] clinic, teenagers and even children with type 2 diabetes and we wouldn’t have seen that 10 years ago. Even under the age of 30 there are many more people developing it than before and having it for a longer time, so there are more complications.”

Source: The nation