Diabetes among adults

Diabetes is quite common, especially Type 2. More than 830,000 people in the Netherlands have diabetes; 90% of them have Type 2, a small percentage have Type 1, and a very small percentage have another form of diabetes. There are also a lot of people with diabetes who do not know they have it. Therefore, the actual number of people with diabetes in the Netherlands is probably higher, around 1 million people.

How many children have diabetes?

We think the number of children and young people with diabetes in the Netherlands is about 6000. The majority (90%) have diabetes Type 1 and less than 10% have diabetes Type 2, but this number seems to be increasing due to overweight. In the United States, more and more children are severely overweight, which caused an increase in diabetes Type 2 there.

Is the frequency increasing?

In the Western world, including the Netherlands, more and more people are getting diabetes. It is estimated that in 10 years another half million people will get diabetes in the Netherlands, resulting in approximately 1.3 million Dutch people with diabetes by 2025.

Fifteen years ago, diabetes rarely occurred in children under five years of age, but that has changed in the last ten years. Patients are getting younger and younger. In addition, the number of new cases of diabetes Type 1 under young people of Moroccan ancestry is 1.5 times higher than with young people of Dutch ancestry.