Undiagnosed diabetes takes economic toll

FALLS CHURCH, Va., May 11 (UPI) -- About 6.3 million U.S. adult diabetics are unaware they have the disease, accounting for an estimated $18 billion in healthcare annually, researchers said.

Yiduo Zhang of the Lewin Group, in Falls Church, Va., and colleagues from Ingenix Pharmainformatics and Ingenix Research studied the healthcare use patterns of a group of people for the two-year period leading up to a diagnosis of diabetes.

Diabetes cost the U.S. economy about $174 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity in 2007, but that figure does not take into account the economic costs associated with undiagnosed diabetes, which could raise the estimate to more than $192 billion, the study said.

The study, published in the Population Health Management, said yearly healthcare needs for people with undiagnosed diabetes tend to be higher than for persons who do not have diabetes. The researchers said the healthcare costs associated with diabetes begin to increase at least 8 years before diagnosis.