12 ms·

Diabetes complications soar in US, but not Canada, as teens become young adults

71 points by howard941 8y ago

xenospn 8y ago
Reminds me of the height differences between South and North Koreans.
kevin_b_er 8y ago
This really is a study on the political consequences of an underregulated free-market economy and the result of political demands for more libertarian ideals as applied. The consequence is the poor cannot afford to live.
- minikites 8y ago
  Lots of people affirmatively believe that the uninsured should die: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/09/let-him-die-a-debate-question-exposes-the-incoherence-and-cowardice-of-the-republican-candidates-opposition-to-obamacare.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/09/let-him-die-a-de... >What should happen, the moderator asked hypothetically, if a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it—and then becomes catastrophically ill and needs intensive care for six months? When Dr. Paul ducked, fondly recalling the good old days before Medicare and saying that we should all take responsibility for ourselves, Blitzer pressed the point. “But, Congressman, are you saying the society should just let him die?” At that point, the rabble erupted in cheers and whoops of “Yeah!”
  - ksdale 8y ago
    I feel like these are two vastly different questions though, whether, on the one hand, society should let people who cannot afford healthcare die, and on the other hand, whether society should allow people to choose how their dollars are spent in a way that may lead to bad healthcare outcomes (like dying from something that's preventable given enough dollars). In your quote, they seem to explicity mention that the person can afford insurance but chooses not to buy it. I mean, we don't make it illegal for people to do a ton of extreme sports where they might die. I don't see much of a difference between, say, climbing Mount Everest and a healthy, wealthy person deciding to spend thousands of dollars on something other than health insurance, knowing that they might not be able to pay the piper. Both are instances of someone choosing current enjoyment and weighing it against the chance of a life-threatening outcome. The real problem seems to be when people have no choice. Of course everyone wants to not die, and of course no one wants to pay for healthcare, but we can't have both, so we have to find a middle ground that involves preventing deaths and paying for healthcare, and it doesn't seem horribly immoral to me to allow people to make the choice to trade their future health for money now (or enjoyment, in the case of mountain climbing or sky diving or whatever). Once again, the problem lies in the lack of choice from the get go.
    - lgeorget 8y ago
      I'm not sure the analogy is accurate though. People doing extreme sports are (usually) aware of the risks and take them consciously. Even those who suffer severe injuries usually say it was worth it and they knew it was something that could happen. On the other hand, the uninsured person is just gambling, and regrets not being insured the day they needs hospitalization.
      - RobertoG 8y ago
        Maybe a more accurate analogy would be: somebody fall in the mountain doing something risk of what was totally aware, should we go to rescue her or left her to die?
        ksdale 8y ago
        But even then, it's not immoral to talk about the very real tradeoffs involving the search and rescue personnel and resources that could be devoted to doing other things, and this indeed comes up when someone is doing something particularly dangerous in the mountains and ends up requiring a spectacular rescue. These rescues are always followed by arguments about who should bear the cost and what should happen if people can't pay. And surely nobody has the obligation to go into the mountains to save someone who was knowingly taking the risk. We live in a world where search and rescue already exists, so it seems natural and obvious to say that they should try and save everyone they can, but are they responsible for a death if they save so many people in a week and decide they can't go out again? In my prior post, I wasn't trying to suggest that we should willy-nilly leave people to die, just that we don't live in a world of infinite resources and that I don't personally believe it's horribly immoral to let people make choices even when those choices can have terrible consequences, assuming they know the risks.
        lgeorget 8y ago
        You have a point. Actually, in the case of search-and-rescue that's already a moral decision that is made each time. In case the rescue mission itself is seemed to dangerous for the team, it's not attempted.
- ecpottinger 8y ago
  You don't even need to be poor, just not have a lot of money saved or expensive insurance and then have a major health problem.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    You can be genuinely well off, making over $120k a year, and still get medically bankrupted because of an unforeseeable condition and some capricious bullshit by your expensive health plan
- Prophasi 8y ago
  This perception of the US as having a free-market economy, particularly in the area of healthcare, is curiously persistent. Vast sums of money are spent lobbying to distort the market in favor of particular companies and industries. The FDA has long been accused of preventing key drugs from coming to market that are available in other countries. The patent system alone perpetuates medication monopolies over decades for fabricated reasons, keeping cheap generics out of people's hands. The tax system heavily favors employer-run plans (for reasons rooted in the WWII era) that encourage overspending, tie coverage to your employer, and distort the market in multiple, deep ways. Medicare and Medicaid are huge. The chart in the FEE link below puts US gov per capita expenditures at 4th in the world. The below Vox article, which is otherwise anti-free-market, concedes that generic insulin providers seem too daunted by secondary patents and "extreme regulatory complexity," both of which obviously run counter to a free market. This isn't to say a free-market system would be a panacea of all complaints (systems dealing in scarce resources will never be perfect to all participants), but those complaints would be much different than those about the layers of bureaucracy, high government spending, low competition, high time-to-market for drugs, breathtaking lobbying efforts, and overwhelming tax complexity we have now. Maybe you think you'd prefer single-payer to the present regime, but to characterize the latter as "free-market" sets up a false dichotomy. (Note that it could logically still be "underregulated," as you say, despite not being free - not that I would agree.) Drug patents: https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-one-done/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-o... Tax distortion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why-tax-reform-should-address-incomprehensible-and-indefensible-inequities-in-health-subsidies https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why-ta... Insulin prices: https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expe... Free market? https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-market-health-care-system-is-pure-fantasy/ https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-mar...
  - howard941 8y ago
    We had a free market for drugs. So free and freely abused that it gave birth to modern journalism (muckraking) and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. For good reasons few yearn to return to those truly free times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html
jimrandomh 8y ago
The article talks about people being uninsured, but this is a misunderstanding of the problem. I'm type 1 diabetic, and the reasons for this are pretty straightforward. In thus US, insulin (of the types people actually use) is very expensive (~$300/vial), and requires a prescription which expires after one year. In Canada, the exact same insulins from the exact same manufacturers are literally 10x cheaper, and are OTC. Being without insulin takes about two hours to turn into a life-threatening emergency. The prescription requirement creates ample opportunities for logistical errors that turn into life-threatening emergencies. And there's no legitimate reason for prescriptions to expire. And the cost is such that, if travel were free, you'd often be better off paying the full price in another country than just the co-pay in the US; the price is so insanely inflated that insurance is just compensating for the dysfunction, it isn't better than a sane uninsured baseline would be. Insulin is cheap in every country in the world except for the United States. This is completely insane. It needs to be OTC in the US, and the import restrictions need to be removed so that US diabetics can have it at the international price instead of the gouging price.
- albuterol 8y ago
  Same goes for asthma medication. Epinephrine got removed from OTC options a few years ago, and now it's impossible to treat asthma without getting pushed into steroid treatments with whopping price tags.
  - mikecsh 8y ago
    Do you not have access to beta2 agonists such as salbutamol?
    - x86_64Ubuntu 8y ago
      Still need a script to get it.
  - ASalazarMX 8y ago
    As a fellow asthmatic, great username.
coldpie 8y ago
In other words, stop voting for Republicans.
- genzoman 8y ago
  Big Pharma knows no party.
  - minikites 8y ago
    Then why are only Democrats pushing for Medicare For All and other comprehensive public health plans while Republicans want to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare)?
    - danharaj 8y ago
      A subset of Democratic politicians and officials are pushing for Medicare for All. Most of the Democratic party machine is tepid-to-opposed.
      - minikites 8y ago
        There are more than zero Democrats working on the problem. There are zero Republicans working on the problem.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      Big Pharma is the only party who wins under a universal healthcare system or private insurance based system. It’s not like ACA or even Medicare covers all Rx...hence Medicare Part D (ie drug coverage) which was done under GW Bush, at the time the GOP distanced themselves and later Obama tried to dismantle Medicare part D, but the dems has to pull him back (politically dems couldn’t gut drug coverage for Medicare patients).
    - cc439 8y ago
      Medicare for all would do nothing to harm Big Pharma as the government is not legally allowed to use its monopsony status to negotiate prices under Medicare Part D (the section of Medicare that accounts for 85% of government drug spending). If anything, it would be a boon to Big Pharma as it removes barriers to access for an enormous number of new "customers". Interestingly, it was the Trump administration [1] who made the first move to allow the government to negotiate drug prices by loosening the restrictions against such practices for Medicare Part B spending (which represents 15% of government drug spending). I'm not saying the American right wing's approach is in any way comparable to the left's, I'm just saying that the left's approach suspiciously overlooks any solutions that might actually threaten Big Pharma. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-forces-pharma-to-face-more-medicare-drug-price-negotiation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-for...
ecpottinger 8y ago
I am type 2, but here in Canada my cost to buy Insulin is way lower, I have no medical plan and buy OTC about 4 months supply for $60 CDN. Also since I am diabetic I have to have a yearly eye examination but it is free. So also for my visits to the Diabetic Clinic every three months where they monitor me. All my doctor visits are free, I have a general (family) doctor, heart doctor, urologist, kidney doctor all free to make appointments with. I do not know how I could afford medical help if I had to pay directly for it all. Yes, I have higher taxes, but I am 62. I have been paying taxes for decades. However, I have relatives in the US with low taxes but are now near bankrupt or are running out of health insurance.
- UnFleshedOne 8y ago
  The funny thing is, you probably are not paying that much more in taxes [0]: "The OECD analyzes the tax burdens of 35 countries, including the United States and Canada. According to its data, in terms of total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, in 2010, the U.S. collected a slightly lower than average amount of taxes from its citizens ($11,365 USD per capita). Canada collected a slightly higher than average amount ($14,693 USD)." This is taxes per GDP, but marginal taxes are not that different either. [0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes-than-americans-but-theres-a-catch.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes...
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    A $3300 difference is a huge difference on a per capita basis. It's literally a 30% increase in tax burden on a per capita basis.
    - yellingdog 8y ago
      Though it is less than the $4k I pay per year to health insurance for a Bronze HDHP as a healthy 25-year-old.
      - xenospn 8y ago
qntty 8y ago
At these ages, it's mostly type 1 diabetes we're talking about. Rates for 19 and under: 22 per 100,000 for type 1 13 per 100,000 for type 2 http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics-report-2017.pdf http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics-re...
- nickles 8y ago
  The referenced article studied individuals aged 12 to 30. Additionally, while type 1 and type 2 diabetes rates among youths are rising, type 2 diabetes is becoming more common in that group. [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6 [1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new-diagnosed-cases-type-1-type-2-diabetes-rise-among-children-teens https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new-diag...
  - qntty 8y ago
    The results from the study linked in the second article (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187) seems to be identical to the ones that I cited for 2011-12.
    - nickles 8y ago
      I missed the breakdown of growth rates in your original source, seeing only the absolute incidences, but I think we're in agreement. It looks like growth in youth type 1 diabetes was reported at 1.8%, while growth in type 2 diabetes was reported at 4.8%.
lolc 8y ago
Wow this is sad. To me, insulin is like food. If I don't get it I die. I will literally starve without it. It's also like food in that my fridge is stocked and it's just part of regular expenses. When I was diagnosed I thought about how a hundred years ago it was a death sentence. And how far we'd come short of a cure. Then I read this and think how far we are spread along the path.

71 points by howard941 8y ago

Reminds me of the height differences between South and North Koreans.

This really is a study on the political consequences of an underregulated free-market economy and the result of political demands for more libertarian ideals as applied. The consequence is the poor cannot afford to live.

minikites 8y ago
Lots of people affirmatively believe that the uninsured should die: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/09/let-him-die-a-debate-question-exposes-the-incoherence-and-cowardice-of-the-republican-candidates-opposition-to-obamacare.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/09/let-him-die-a-de... >What should happen, the moderator asked hypothetically, if a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it—and then becomes catastrophically ill and needs intensive care for six months? When Dr. Paul ducked, fondly recalling the good old days before Medicare and saying that we should all take responsibility for ourselves, Blitzer pressed the point. “But, Congressman, are you saying the society should just let him die?” At that point, the rabble erupted in cheers and whoops of “Yeah!”
- ksdale 8y ago
  I feel like these are two vastly different questions though, whether, on the one hand, society should let people who cannot afford healthcare die, and on the other hand, whether society should allow people to choose how their dollars are spent in a way that may lead to bad healthcare outcomes (like dying from something that's preventable given enough dollars). In your quote, they seem to explicity mention that the person can afford insurance but chooses not to buy it. I mean, we don't make it illegal for people to do a ton of extreme sports where they might die. I don't see much of a difference between, say, climbing Mount Everest and a healthy, wealthy person deciding to spend thousands of dollars on something other than health insurance, knowing that they might not be able to pay the piper. Both are instances of someone choosing current enjoyment and weighing it against the chance of a life-threatening outcome. The real problem seems to be when people have no choice. Of course everyone wants to not die, and of course no one wants to pay for healthcare, but we can't have both, so we have to find a middle ground that involves preventing deaths and paying for healthcare, and it doesn't seem horribly immoral to me to allow people to make the choice to trade their future health for money now (or enjoyment, in the case of mountain climbing or sky diving or whatever). Once again, the problem lies in the lack of choice from the get go.
  - lgeorget 8y ago
    I'm not sure the analogy is accurate though. People doing extreme sports are (usually) aware of the risks and take them consciously. Even those who suffer severe injuries usually say it was worth it and they knew it was something that could happen. On the other hand, the uninsured person is just gambling, and regrets not being insured the day they needs hospitalization.
    - RobertoG 8y ago
      Maybe a more accurate analogy would be: somebody fall in the mountain doing something risk of what was totally aware, should we go to rescue her or left her to die?
      - ksdale 8y ago
        But even then, it's not immoral to talk about the very real tradeoffs involving the search and rescue personnel and resources that could be devoted to doing other things, and this indeed comes up when someone is doing something particularly dangerous in the mountains and ends up requiring a spectacular rescue. These rescues are always followed by arguments about who should bear the cost and what should happen if people can't pay. And surely nobody has the obligation to go into the mountains to save someone who was knowingly taking the risk. We live in a world where search and rescue already exists, so it seems natural and obvious to say that they should try and save everyone they can, but are they responsible for a death if they save so many people in a week and decide they can't go out again? In my prior post, I wasn't trying to suggest that we should willy-nilly leave people to die, just that we don't live in a world of infinite resources and that I don't personally believe it's horribly immoral to let people make choices even when those choices can have terrible consequences, assuming they know the risks.
        lgeorget 8y ago
        You have a point. Actually, in the case of search-and-rescue that's already a moral decision that is made each time. In case the rescue mission itself is seemed to dangerous for the team, it's not attempted.
ecpottinger 8y ago
You don't even need to be poor, just not have a lot of money saved or expensive insurance and then have a major health problem.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  You can be genuinely well off, making over $120k a year, and still get medically bankrupted because of an unforeseeable condition and some capricious bullshit by your expensive health plan
Prophasi 8y ago
This perception of the US as having a free-market economy, particularly in the area of healthcare, is curiously persistent. Vast sums of money are spent lobbying to distort the market in favor of particular companies and industries. The FDA has long been accused of preventing key drugs from coming to market that are available in other countries. The patent system alone perpetuates medication monopolies over decades for fabricated reasons, keeping cheap generics out of people's hands. The tax system heavily favors employer-run plans (for reasons rooted in the WWII era) that encourage overspending, tie coverage to your employer, and distort the market in multiple, deep ways. Medicare and Medicaid are huge. The chart in the FEE link below puts US gov per capita expenditures at 4th in the world. The below Vox article, which is otherwise anti-free-market, concedes that generic insulin providers seem too daunted by secondary patents and "extreme regulatory complexity," both of which obviously run counter to a free market. This isn't to say a free-market system would be a panacea of all complaints (systems dealing in scarce resources will never be perfect to all participants), but those complaints would be much different than those about the layers of bureaucracy, high government spending, low competition, high time-to-market for drugs, breathtaking lobbying efforts, and overwhelming tax complexity we have now. Maybe you think you'd prefer single-payer to the present regime, but to characterize the latter as "free-market" sets up a false dichotomy. (Note that it could logically still be "underregulated," as you say, despite not being free - not that I would agree.) Drug patents: https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-one-done/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-o... Tax distortion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why-tax-reform-should-address-incomprehensible-and-indefensible-inequities-in-health-subsidies https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why-ta... Insulin prices: https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expe... Free market? https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-market-health-care-system-is-pure-fantasy/ https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-mar...
- howard941 8y ago
  We had a free market for drugs. So free and freely abused that it gave birth to modern journalism (muckraking) and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. For good reasons few yearn to return to those truly free times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html

jimrandomh 8y ago

The article talks about people being uninsured, but this is a misunderstanding of the problem. I'm type 1 diabetic, and the reasons for this are pretty straightforward. In thus US, insulin (of the types people actually use) is very expensive (~$300/vial), and requires a prescription which expires after one year. In Canada, the exact same insulins from the exact same manufacturers are literally 10x cheaper, and are OTC. Being without insulin takes about two hours to turn into a life-threatening emergency. The prescription requirement creates ample opportunities for logistical errors that turn into life-threatening emergencies. And there's no legitimate reason for prescriptions to expire. And the cost is such that, if travel were free, you'd often be better off paying the full price in another country than just the co-pay in the US; the price is so insanely inflated that insurance is just compensating for the dysfunction, it isn't better than a sane uninsured baseline would be. Insulin is cheap in every country in the world except for the United States. This is completely insane. It needs to be OTC in the US, and the import restrictions need to be removed so that US diabetics can have it at the international price instead of the gouging price.

albuterol 8y ago
Same goes for asthma medication. Epinephrine got removed from OTC options a few years ago, and now it's impossible to treat asthma without getting pushed into steroid treatments with whopping price tags.
- mikecsh 8y ago
  Do you not have access to beta2 agonists such as salbutamol?
  - x86_64Ubuntu 8y ago
    Still need a script to get it.
- ASalazarMX 8y ago
  As a fellow asthmatic, great username.

coldpie 8y ago

In other words, stop voting for Republicans.

genzoman 8y ago
Big Pharma knows no party.
- minikites 8y ago
  Then why are only Democrats pushing for Medicare For All and other comprehensive public health plans while Republicans want to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare)?
  - danharaj 8y ago
    A subset of Democratic politicians and officials are pushing for Medicare for All. Most of the Democratic party machine is tepid-to-opposed.
    - minikites 8y ago
      There are more than zero Democrats working on the problem. There are zero Republicans working on the problem.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    Big Pharma is the only party who wins under a universal healthcare system or private insurance based system. It’s not like ACA or even Medicare covers all Rx...hence Medicare Part D (ie drug coverage) which was done under GW Bush, at the time the GOP distanced themselves and later Obama tried to dismantle Medicare part D, but the dems has to pull him back (politically dems couldn’t gut drug coverage for Medicare patients).
  - cc439 8y ago
    Medicare for all would do nothing to harm Big Pharma as the government is not legally allowed to use its monopsony status to negotiate prices under Medicare Part D (the section of Medicare that accounts for 85% of government drug spending). If anything, it would be a boon to Big Pharma as it removes barriers to access for an enormous number of new "customers". Interestingly, it was the Trump administration [1] who made the first move to allow the government to negotiate drug prices by loosening the restrictions against such practices for Medicare Part B spending (which represents 15% of government drug spending). I'm not saying the American right wing's approach is in any way comparable to the left's, I'm just saying that the left's approach suspiciously overlooks any solutions that might actually threaten Big Pharma. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-forces-pharma-to-face-more-medicare-drug-price-negotiation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-for...

ecpottinger 8y ago

I am type 2, but here in Canada my cost to buy Insulin is way lower, I have no medical plan and buy OTC about 4 months supply for $60 CDN. Also since I am diabetic I have to have a yearly eye examination but it is free. So also for my visits to the Diabetic Clinic every three months where they monitor me. All my doctor visits are free, I have a general (family) doctor, heart doctor, urologist, kidney doctor all free to make appointments with. I do not know how I could afford medical help if I had to pay directly for it all. Yes, I have higher taxes, but I am 62. I have been paying taxes for decades. However, I have relatives in the US with low taxes but are now near bankrupt or are running out of health insurance.

UnFleshedOne 8y ago
The funny thing is, you probably are not paying that much more in taxes [0]: "The OECD analyzes the tax burdens of 35 countries, including the United States and Canada. According to its data, in terms of total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, in 2010, the U.S. collected a slightly lower than average amount of taxes from its citizens ($11,365 USD per capita). Canada collected a slightly higher than average amount ($14,693 USD)." This is taxes per GDP, but marginal taxes are not that different either. [0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes-than-americans-but-theres-a-catch.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes...
- gamblor956 8y ago
  A $3300 difference is a huge difference on a per capita basis. It's literally a 30% increase in tax burden on a per capita basis.
  - yellingdog 8y ago
    Though it is less than the $4k I pay per year to health insurance for a Bronze HDHP as a healthy 25-year-old.
    - xenospn 8y ago

qntty 8y ago

At these ages, it's mostly type 1 diabetes we're talking about. Rates for 19 and under: 22 per 100,000 for type 1 13 per 100,000 for type 2 http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics-report-2017.pdf http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics-re...

nickles 8y ago
The referenced article studied individuals aged 12 to 30. Additionally, while type 1 and type 2 diabetes rates among youths are rising, type 2 diabetes is becoming more common in that group. [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6 [1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new-diagnosed-cases-type-1-type-2-diabetes-rise-among-children-teens https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new-diag...
- qntty 8y ago
  The results from the study linked in the second article (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187) seems to be identical to the ones that I cited for 2011-12.
  - nickles 8y ago
    I missed the breakdown of growth rates in your original source, seeing only the absolute incidences, but I think we're in agreement. It looks like growth in youth type 1 diabetes was reported at 1.8%, while growth in type 2 diabetes was reported at 4.8%.

lolc 8y ago

Wow this is sad. To me, insulin is like food. If I don't get it I die. I will literally starve without it. It's also like food in that my fridge is stocked and it's just part of regular expenses. When I was diagnosed I thought about how a hundred years ago it was a death sentence. And how far we'd come short of a cure. Then I read this and think how far we are spread along the path.