A 50-year-old with diabetes dies, on average, six years earlier than a person of the same age without diabetes, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

By comparison, long-term cigarette smoking reduces life expectancy by about ten years, the study says.

 

The study, conducted at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., aimed to move past earlier studies that have only considered diabetes in relation to only one or a few selected cancers or other nonvascular conditions. By analyzing data from analyzed data from 97 earlier studies, it drew new conclusions about the risks diabetics face.

 

In addition its well-known links to vascular disease, the study found that diabetes is associated with substantial premature death from several cancers and infectious diseases, independent of several major risk factors.

 

In particular, the researchers found that diabetes was moderately associated with death from kidney disease, liver disease, pneumonia and other infectious diseases, mental disorders, nonhepatic digestive diseases, external causes, intentional self-harm, nervous-system disorders, and chronic pulmonary disease.

 

The study sheds new light on a mounting problem. More than half of Americans could become diabetic or pre-diabetic during the next decade if unchecked by concerted large-scale interventions, the insurer UnitedHealth warned in November 2010. Barring disruptive change, it says, diabetes and pre-diabetes could account for 10 percent of total healthcare spending by the end of the decade.