How Much DOES the World Care About Diabetes?

For all diabetics or those who care for or have a loved one with diabetes, good news has arrived! Technology to improve the quality of life for Type 1 diabetics throughout the world are increasing at a more rapid pace then ever seen before. As we hear more and more about new technologies and research projects, I decided to investigate just how much does the world care about diabetes? Essentially, how much money and time does our world use to focus on making life better for diabetics?

According to the MedMarket Diligence report conducted in July 2010, $36 billion dollars in the global market annually is used on diabetes management products. The products and technologies covered can be found at the MedMarket report.  Because of intense competition between different companies, more products are being developed and are designed to be as efficient and cost-effective as possible. The report also projects how the market will change over the next 10 years (until 2018) and states that global research and technologies are projected to increase exponentially in the decades to come.
Europe is expected to have a growth of 11% in the market for diabetes management products while Asia is expected to have an astounding 24% growth. Despite Asia's predicted growth, Europe and the United States still dominate the market for these products, representing 68% of the global market.

Some of the new technologies and products that are said to be investigated are: new continuous glucose monitoring systems, islet cell transplants, vaccines, antibody treatments, oral/inhaled insulin delivery, and most importantly the closed loop blood glucose monitoring system (also called the artificial pancreas). The report was very optimistic about the speed in which these products will be adequately researched and tested in order to be placed on the market in the "very near future".
For all diabetics, this is great news to hear that the world does indeed care about our wellbeing. This emphasize on creating diabetes management products can be attributed to the fact that there is a growing number of type 1 diabetics worldwide. According to the American Diabetes Association, 1.6 million cases of diabetes are newly diagnosed each year in people over the age of 20. With more diabetics, it is important for products to be developed that will help their every day lifestyle. The rapid pace at which research is being conducted is relieving for some elderly diabetics who may have believed that they would be using the same technology for the rest of their lives. The fact that a report that looks at diabetes products growing rapidly in just 10 years span gives hope to diabetics from ages 50-80 years old who could be some of the first to use this new technology in old age. I urge diabetics and caregivers to look into the future with optimism as new technology emerges daily.

The complete MedMarket report can be ordered online at http://mediligence.com/store/page34.html

References:
http://www.prlog.org/10862901-new-technologies-in-type-1-and-type-2-diabetes-management.html
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/
http://www.mediligence.com/rpt/rpt-d510.htm