Diabetes is a large and increasing disease burden in Europe and beyond

Diabetes mellitus is a growing burden for all the countries in the world. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that the number of people with diabetes will grow from 194 million in 2003 to 333 million in 2025 (IDF, 2007). The increase is expected to particularly occur in developing countries, but also in industrialized countries. The estimates for 2025 were based on projections of observed increases in prevalence.

Not only the diagnosis of diabetes and the treatment of its characteristic elevated blood glucose (hyperglycemia) are important for reducing the societal burden of diabetes, but also the diagnosis and treatment of complications that may follow from diabetes. The most important of these are microvascular disease (neuropathy, retinopathy and nephropathy) and macrovascular disease (heart, cerebral and peripheral vessels). The actual numbers for these complications are not very well known at the national level, restricting the validity of international comparisons.

A growing proportion of all populations in the world present a state of impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose, and are therefore at risk of developing diabetes. About 10% of this group will develop diabetes annually. The IDF estimates this number to be 50% higher than the population with diabetes. For more detailed information see the EUpact on Diabetes.

The EUCID project is a follow-up of the EUDIP project

The European Diabetes Indicators Project (EUDIP) in 2000-2003 defined and piloted diabetes risk and diabetes care indicators on the national level in EU Member states, and as a result published a list of feasible indicators. The European Core Indicators in Diabetes (EUCID) project collected these indicators for the year 2005 (+/- 1 year) from 19 countries. Both projects were co-financed by DG-SANCO under the Health Monitoring Programme and the Public Health Programme, respectively.

The list of 35 indicators can be seen in Overview of data availability per indicator by country. The entire EUCID report, including annexes, can be viewed and downloaded at www.eucid.eu.