The sources of data tend to miss a good deal of the disease because it is undiagnosed at a rate as high as 50%. One study finds that the overall European prevalence of the disease is about 7.8%, with over 48 million adults aged 20-79 years in Europe living with diabetes in 2003. Rates are usually higher in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe ("Diabetes in Europe" paras. 1-5). The increase in diabetes in different parts of the world has been attributed to the spread of Western eating habits, and among the trappings of the Western lifestyle that have affected rates are fast food, television, video games and driving everywhere. In Europe, these changes have taken a toll so that five percent of the population has diabetes, a rate about the same as Africa, though the incidence of undiagnosed diabetes is through to be higher in Africa than in Europe because of different attitudes toward health care. Rates have been climbing I large African cities, as in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where the rate has climbed from one percent to 6% in ten years. Developing countries show the disease as an epidemic affecting people between the ages of 45 and 64, some of the most productive years of their lives. An issue in the spread of diabetes is the failure of doctors to diagnose the issue. Doctors are diagnosing diabetes in Africa at high rates, showing an increase at a rate of 11% per annum so that there is talk of an epidemic of diabetes. Among the reasons given for this are the high GI, high fat diet the general public is consuming, and also an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, with higher stress and more smoking ("Diagnosis of Diabetes" para. 1). Still, it is estimated that at least 50% of cases of the disease are undiagnosed either because the...

The Republic of Ireland has been considered a region of low type 1 diabetes incidence compared with the British Isles and the rest of Europe. The crude incidence rate of type 1 diabetes stands at 16.6 per 100,000 per year, and the directly standardized incidence rate stands at 16.3 per 100,000 per year. The Republic has a high incidence of type 1 diabetes, and so services should be planned and resources allocated accordingly. There also appear to be differing rates between Northern and Southern Ireland (Roche, Gill, Hoey, and Menon para. 1).
Such differences in Ireland suggest genetic factors for childhood diabetes and lifestyle differences for Type 2. Similar distinctions can be made between Europe as a whole and Africa, with the highest incidence in sub-Saharan Africa, while Northern Africa shows a lower rate.

Works Cited

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"Diabetes in Europe." British Heart Foudnation (2005, March 31). .

"Diabetes Reportedly to Double Worldwide by 2030." Reuters (26 April 2004). May 12, 2005. < http://www.lifescaneurope.com/uk/diabetes/reuters/dn042604_01/>.

"Diagnosis of Diabetes." The Glycemic Index Foundation of South Africa (2005). May 15, 2005. .

Erickson, Deborah. "Brain, food." Scientific American (November 1991), 124-125.

Roche, Edna F., Denis G. Gill, HMCV Hoey, and A. Menon. "National Incidence of Type 1…