Diabetes care ‘better managed in UK than US’

Diabetic patients are better managed in the UK than they are in the US, according to latest reports.

Access to a healthcare system available to all means that more patients are entitled to treatment, which leads to sufferers in the UK being effectively managed. This contrasts with diabetic sufferers in the US who do not have the privilege of universal health care and can hence miss out on essential treatment.

The findings come from a study found in the latest edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, which involved researchers in the UK and US comparing diabetes management in the two countries. Over two million people in the UK currently have diabetes, with a further million affected by it, but not knowing they have it. There are 14.6 million known sufferers currently in the US.

Professor Arch Mainous, from the Medical University of South Carolina, commented: “Our evidence shows that universal healthcare when treating a common disease like diabetes, works. In both countries, diabetes sufferers are effectively managed as outpatients and our research shows that when patients have access to free healthcare, they have better clinical outcomes.

“Importantly, this finding does not reflect income or social class since better control of the disease amongst people with insurance or free access persists in both countries even among poor patients and minorities.”

The professor added that the NHS could be potentially seen as a ‘model’ for the US healthcare system, since it “spends substantially” more of its gross domestic product on health despite 44 million people currently living without health insurance.

Diabetes is a disease characterised by too much glucose being present in the blood due to insufficient levels of the hormone insulin, which is produced by the pancreas. Type II diabetes is a high risk for people whose family members have been previously afflicted by it. The NHS recommends a healthy diet and lots of exercise as a means to prevent onset of the disease.

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