Diabetes hits a record 1.4m high: report

The diabetes epidemic has reached a dire new high, with 1.4 million Australians now believed to have the debilitating disease.

A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has painted the grimmest picture yet of the impact of diabetes, showing 700,000 people have been clinically diagnosed.

The figure was "fearsome", according to leading diabetes expert Professor Paul Zimmet whose comprehensive AusDiab study carried out in 2000 found 500,000 had been diagnosed.

"We know that there is one unknown case for every known case so we now have 1.4 million with the disease," said Prof Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne.

"That is fearsome indeed because it's higher than before and far higher then any predictions we've made.

"It represents the biggest epidemic apart from obesity in Australian history."

The AIHW report, Diabetes: Australian Facts 2008, collates the latest 2004/05 statistics to map the path of the condition.

In this year, four per cent of the population had the disease, up from 1.3 per cent in 1990.

Report author Lynelle Moon said the overall rise was largely driven by an increase in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes, the preventable form of the disease linked to obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

"However, type 1 diabetes and gestational diabetes are also on the rise," Ms Moon said.

Diabetics were twice as likely to have had a heart attack, and four times as likely to have had a stroke.

Nearly a third of people starting treatment for end-stage kidney disease did so because of their diabetes, and almost 3,400 people with diabetes had a leg amputated.

The report also found that diabetes was treated in more than half a million hospitalisations in 2004/05, with an impact on total health expenditure of $907 million.

The illness either caused or contributed to one in 11 deaths, with the rate highest among indigenous Australians and people born in South-East Europe, North Africa and the Middle-East.

Diabetes specialists have welcomed a recent $200 million federal government initiative to prevent the disease but have cautioned it may not be enough.

"It does indicate that government is starting to identify the problem but these funds may not be sufficient in terms of this latest data," Prof Zimmet said.