UNDERTREATED

Of those who had been diagnosed with diabetes, many are not getting the treatment they need, the team found.

Of diabetics in all the studies, the range of those who met goals for blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol ranged from a low of 1 percent in Mexico to a high of 12 percent in the United States.

“The cost of leaving individuals with diabetes untreated in the future will be huge, and a lot of the costs could be averted by better management of the health risks of these individuals,” Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Surprisingly, personal wealth and education were not a significant factor in the rates of diagnosis and treatment in any of the countries except in Thailand.

But health insurance status played a major role.

“In countries where we had information on health insurance, it actually played a significant role in getting diagnosed and effectively treated for diabetes,” Gakidou said.

The effect was the strongest in the United States, where adult diabetics who had insurance were twice as likely to be diagnosed and treated as those who had no insurance.

“That is a big effect in a country with a large population of adults with diabetes,” she said.

In October, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected that up to a third of U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050 if Americans continue to gain weight and avoid exercise.

SOURCE: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, online February 28, 2011.