Diabetes threshold exceeded in Kazakhstan

190,682 new diabetics were registered in Kazakhstan in the beginning of 2011, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Diabetes Association. According to President of the Association Natalya Tukalevskaya, Kazakhstan has 64,112 men and 126,570 women, including 1,160 children and 587 teenagers suffering from diabetes. Moreover, according to the researchers, the total number of people with diabetes in Kazakhstan has already exceeded 700 thousand people. According to the statistics, another 174,762 people were registered in 2010. The 2010 numbers exceeded the expected values. "18 percent of the total healthcare costs fall on diabetes in European countries. In the course of the population aging and if we fail to stop the diabetes epidemics, we should expect that our costs would exceed that percentage," Tukalevskaya said. She added that overall expenses of the society related to loss of labor ability may exceed the direct expenses of the healthcare system on diabetes almost 5-fold. This, in its turn, would undermine national economies of many countries, including Kazakhstan. By Galima Gabdullina