Brussels, 20/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Association for the Study of Diabetes, in conjunction with the European Commission, is organizing a symposium on 12 November 2004 in the European Parliament on the future of diabetes research. The meeting will be opened by the recently appointed Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik. The participants include Professor Pierre Lefebvre, President of the World Diabetes Federation; Dr Allen Spiegel from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in the USA; Dr Richard Insel for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in the US; Lars Rebien Soerensen of Novo Nordisk; Belgian Socialist Philippe Busquin, MEP and former European Commissioner for Research; and British Conservative John Bowis, MEP.
The symposium has been organised to identify key areas where EU investment is most required and will be most effective, and may discuss the European Association for the Study of Diabetes' suggestion of setting up a European Fund for Diabetes Research.
The European Association for the Study of Diabetes believes that pooling funding from the European Commission, national governments, industry and NGOs would provide EUR 100 million at start up.
The Fund would be managed by an independent body, and managed by a council made up of representatives of the different contributors.
Under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for Research, some EUR 30 million will be earmarked for diabetes research. The European Commission is contributing to an integrated programme called 'Diabesity' of clinical and basic key researchers on type 2 diabetes. Under FP5, the European Commission supported 22 research projects on diabetes with a total cost of EUR 56 million (EUR 42 million of which came from EU funds).
Type I insulin dependent and type 2 non-insulin dependent diabetes are on the increase, especially type 2 which is directly linked to bad nutrition and lifestyle choices.
Both types of diabetes reduce life expectancy by 15 years on average, increasing cardiovascular disease risk, and being the leading cause of kidney disease, lower limb amputations and adult-onset blindness.
The current cost of type 2 diabetes (some 90% of all diabetics) is EUR 15 billion a year in the EU. In Finland, which has the highest incidence of type 1 diabetes in the world, a prevention and treatment programme has been set up (see http://www.diabetes.fi/English/programme/index.htm ).
The direct cost of treating diabetics was close to EUR 1 bn at the end of the 1990s, 11% of the Finnish healthcare budget. There are around 180,000 diabetics in Finland, 150,000 of them type 2.