Wow.

So the new figures are in and they’ve concluded the annual cost for diabetes in the U.S. for 2007 hit *$174 Billion dollars*, up 32% since 2002. That is 1 in every 5 health care dollars going to diabetes care. These figures are only for the U.S., worldwide the estimates go over $300 billion.

This number shadows the $150 Billion in damages from Hurricane Katrina and some say it is about as much as the cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts (though who knows the real numbers on that).

This is really getting out of control, they say last year the diabetes related death toll in the U.S. was over 284,000. There are 1 million new cases each year.

These figures also did not take into account the undiagnosed diabetes population in the U.S. which is estimated at over (more…)