That’s after the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in Britain has risen by more than 167,000 since last year – more than double the 2006 to 2007 increase of 83,000, according to Diabetes UK.

Diabetes is a disease where your blood sugar level, produced when the body uses carbohydrates, is too high for the body to cope with. Glucose levels are kept under control by the hormone insulin, but people with Type 1 diabetes do not produce any insulin, and people with the more common Type 2 diabetes do not produce enough.

Around 90 per cent of people with diabetes have Type 2 diabetes, which is strongly linked to lifestyle factors such as being overweight or obese, not getting enough exercise and eating an unhealthy diet. To find out more about diabetes, Click Here: Understanding Diabetes

Scotland saw the biggest rise in people with diabetes, soaring by almost 17% to 200,669 people. In England, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has broken two million for the first time, with 60,822 people with diabetes living in Northern Ireland and 138,988 in Wales.

The figures also show that there are now five million people registered obese in the UK compared to almost 4.8 million last year. The largest increase in obesity was again seen in Scotland.

“These are truly alarming figures,” said Douglas Smallwood, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK. “There is no getting away from the fact that this large increase is linked to the obesity crisis.”

Diabetes is one of the biggest health challenges facing the UK today. It causes heart disease, stroke, amputations, kidney failure and blindness, and more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined, said Smallwood. And he added that the NHS already spends one million pounds an hour on diabetes.

“There is always the thought at the back of my mind that diabetes can have complications,” says Surjeet Soin, who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 12 years ago.

“I’m trying to reduce my chances by being active and careful with my diet. I know I can’t cure my condition, but I can lead a healthy life. I’m a fairly active person and that has helped me to maintain my diabetes, but at the same time it is a progressive condition and there is no actual cure for it at this stage.” To read more of this interview, Click Here: Living With Type 2 Diabetes.

In addition to the 2.5 million people diagnosed with diabetes, there are still more than half a million people who have Type 2 diabetes in the UK and don’t know it. Diabetes can go undiagnosed for up to ten years and 50 per cent of people already have signs of complications by the time they are diagnosed.

Read More on Diabetes:

Diabetes: Who is at Risk?

The Symptoms of Diabetes

Types of Diabetes