There has been an 80 per cent rise in prescriptions to treat diabetes in the past decade Peter Byrne/PAOne in 20 prescriptions written by GPs is for diabetes drugs after an 80 per cent rise in the past decade. Treatments for the condition now cost family doctors almost £1 billion a year, one in every nine pounds they spend on medicines. The figures led to calls for tougher action against obesity, one of the leading causes of diabetes. Diabetes is the result of a lack of insulin or resistance to it, leading to difficulties controlling blood sugar. In 2016-17 GPs wrote 52 million prescriptions for insulin and medicines to control sugar in the blood, up from 29 million…

Source: The Times August 01, 2017 15:56 UTC