The number of people in the United States suffering from diabetes since 1980 has doubled to more than 20 million, a figure expected to double once again by 2025. But with the staggering growth in the disease has come a shocking cost. In 2005, federal agencies spent nearly $80 billion—one in eight federal healthcare dollars—on treating and preventing diabetes, according to a study from Mathematica Policy Research that was commissioned by Novo Nordisk's National Changing Diabetes Program. Diabetes has serious complications that are largely preventable with proper management and treatment. The complications include heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, blindness, amputation and renal disease. Prevention efforts, such as proper nutrition and physical activity, are effective with type-2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. But the study also found that in 2005 the government spent only $4 billion on disease prevention and health promotion programs that could help prevent diabetes, only 5 percent of its overall spending on the disease. The study found nearly every federal department—18 of 21—spends money on diabetes, but there is a lack of coordination between various agencies and programs. Among the recommendations made in the report is the creation of national coordinator to provide federal leadership on diabetes to ensure cooperation between departments and avoid the missed opportunities that now characterize the approach to federal spending today.