Diabetes could soon cost Ontario $7 billion a year if action isn't taken now to slow the number of new diagnoses, the Canadian Diabetes Association says in a new study.
According to the research, called the Ontario Diabetes Cost Model, there are an estimated 1.2 million people with diabetes in Ontario. That's about 8.2 per cent of the province's population. That will increase to more than 1.9 million people, or 11.9 per cent of the population, by 2020, the study found.
And those figures do not include people who haven't been diagnosed or who have pre-diabetes, a condition in which their blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of full diabetes.
The Canadian Diabetes Association is calling on the province to concentrate on a broad-based diabetes prevention strategy, a targeted population-at-risk strategy and a diabetes complications prevention strategy.
"The economic burden of diabetes in Ontario is staggering and threatens the sustainability of our health-care system and the provincial economy," association president Michael Cloutier said in a news release.
"It's estimated the direct and indirect financial impact of diabetes in Ontario currently costs the province $4.9 billion per year," Cloutier said. "By 2020, these costs will increase to $7 billion per year if we don't take action."
The association said the human cost of the disease is reaching epidemic levels.
"One in four Ontarians will be living either with diabetes or pre-diabetes by 2020," said Cloutier.
"We need to focus on how we think about and approach diabetes management and prevention in our province."
This is the second provincial cost model report released by the Canadian Diabetes Association. The first report was released this past May for New Brunswick.
The Association plans to release diabetes cost models for all provinces and territories.
