People who have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type 2 are more likely than those without diabetes to report other chronic health conditions, a new survey shows. According to UPI, a public health survey conducted by the Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index in Britain shows that having diabetes is a predictor for other conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma and heart attack.
To reach their conclusions, researchers contacted 11,811 Britons in the period of time since January. Conducted by telephone, the interviews have a margin of error of 1.1 percentage points.
With 7.4 percent of British adults living with diabetes, this could become a major health concern and a strain on healthcare related costs.
And it doesn’t seem that Britons are taking positive action to avoid the additional complications associated with diabetes. Only 42 percent of British people who report being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes say they exercise for at least 30 minutes three or more days per week. That’s compared with 53 percent of those without diabetes who say the same, UPI reported.
In the United States, the rate of diabetes is also on the rise and causing similar concerns. A recent Gallup poll found that 11 percent of Americans reported having been diagnosed with diabetes in the third quarter of 2011. That’s up from 10.6 percent in the second quarter, UPI said. That survey had a margin of error of 0.3 percentage points.
