Women with Diabetes Live with More Disabilities

Patients with diabetes have shorter life expectancies and will live with more disabilities than those without diabetes, according to a new study.

For their study, the researchers analyzed a cohort of adults with and without diabetes in Australia and used the Chiang and adapted Sullivan methods to estimate life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Cut the Meat to Curb Diabetes
Periodic Fasting May Help Prevent Diabetes
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The researchers also collected mortality data from the National Diabetes Services Scheme and from national mortality datasets in 2011 and collected disability data from the 2012 Australian Survey of Disability, Ageing, and Carers.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that men aged 50 years with diabetes had a life expectancy of 30.2 years and a disability-free life expectancy of 12.7 years, and women aged 50 years with diabetes had a life expectancy of 33.9 years and a disability-free life expectancy of 13.1 years. The estimated loss of life expectancy associated with diabetes was 3.2 years for men and 3.1 years for women compared with their counterparts without diabetes. The estimated loss of disability-free life expectancy was 8.2 years for men and 9.1 years for women.

“In adults, diabetes results in a modest reduction in [life expectancy] and a substantial reduction in [disability-free life expectancy],” the researchers concluded. “Efforts to identify the specific causes of disability and effective interventions are needed.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Huo L, Shaw JE, Wong E, Harding JL, Peeters A, Magliano DJ. Burden of diabetes in Australia: life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy in adults with diabetes [published online April 14, 2016]. Diabetologia. doi:10.​1007/​s00125-016-3948-x)