Research

In 1999-2000, 7.5% of the Australian population aged 25 years and older had diabetes, 8.0 % of males and 7.0% of females. In people 75 years and over 23.6% had diabetes.

For every known case of diabetes, there was one undiagnosed case.

Almost 30% of adult Australians had elevated blood pressure or were on treatment for this condition.

One in six Australians participated in no physical activity, while only half of all Australians were participating in sufficient physical activity to maintain good health (defined as 150 minutes per week).

At the turn of the century, there were almost one million Australians with diabetes.

Almost 60% of Australians were classified as either overweight or obese, 2.5 times more than in 1980.

The number of people with diabetes has trebled since a broadly based blood survey was undertaken in 1981.

In comparison to people with normal glucose tolerance, those with diabetes were more likely to have hypertension (69.3% vs. 21.1%), to be obese (44.4% vs. 15.9%), to have elevated triglycerides (42.9% vs. 16.0%), and to have a depressed HDL-cholesterol (23.1% vs. 10.6%).

Almost 1 in 4 Australians 25 years and over has either diabetes or elevated blood sugar that is not quite in the range of diabetes (called “pre-diabetes”). Pre-diabetes is associated with substantially increased immediate risk of heart disease as well as increased risk of diabetes in the future.

Increased television viewing was shown to be strongly related to both obesity and the metabolic syndrome.

Approximately 16% of the population had some form of kidney damage present and were therefore at risk of renal disease, which consumes 5.7% of the health care budget.

Every day in Australia approximately 275 adults develop diabetes.

The average increase in waist circumference in Australians over 5 years was 2.1cm.

4% of those in the overweight category in the 1999/2000 survey moved up into the obese category in the 2004/5 survey.

Those aged less than 65 years showed an average weight increase of 1.8kg over 5 years.

Every year, 3% of adults developed high blood pressure.

Every year, almost 1% of adults developed kidney disease, with the risk being higher in females and older people.

The percentage of people developing diabetes over the five years between the studies was twice as high for those who did no physical activity compared to those who did more than 150 minutes per week of physical activity.

People with pre-diabetes (elevated blood sugar levels but not as high as for diabetes) were 15 times more likely to develop diabetes than were those with normal blood glucose levels.

Obese people were 4 times more likely to develop diabetes than were those with normal weight.