HONG KONG (Reuters) – Diabetes and its complications – such as strokes and heart disease – will place an enormous financial burden on poorer countries in years to come, researchers warned in a report published this week.

Philip Clarke, associate professor at University of Sydney's School of Public Health, and his colleagues examined records of 11,140 patients with severe diabetes in 20 countries, including the complications they suffered, money spent and length of hospital stays; and they found diabetes hit healthcare costs more severely in poorer countries. Nearly 250 million people worldwide have diabetes, with three quarters of all people with diabetes living in the developing world.