The 1.4 hours a week lost, which costs $3.65 billion per year in health-related lost productive time, was more than twice the amount of lost time of diabetic workers without neuropathic symptoms.

Researchers at the Geisinger Center for Health Research, in Danville, Pa., say those who have neuropathic symptoms as a result of diabetes are more likely to be unemployed.

The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, looked at 19,075 working adults, including 1,003 who were diagnosed with diabetes and of these workers and found 38 percent reported diabetes-related numbness or tingling in their feet or hands.

When the investigators compared health-related lost productive time, it was 18 percent higher in diabetics with symptoms and 5 percent higher in diabetics without symptoms.

In addition, those with diabetes were about twice more likely than those without diabetes to be unemployed, the researchers say.