Insulin prices more than tripled between 2002 and 2013: study

In a blow to diabetics, the cost of insulin more than tripled from $231 to $736 a year per patient - between 2002 and 2013, a new analysis has revealed.

The increase mirrored the increasing prices for a milliliter of insulin, which climbed 197 per cent from $4.34 per to $12.92 during the same period.

However, the amount of money each patient spent on other diabetes medications was down 16 per cent, to $502 from $600, according to a research letter published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

''Insulin is a life-saving medication,'' said Dr William Herman, a coauthor of the analysis and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, School of Public Health, statnews.com reported. ''There are people with type 1 diabetes who will die without insulin. And while there have been incremental benefits in insulin products, prices have been rising. So there are people who can't afford them. It's a real problem.''

The analysis further found that the cost of various widely used oral diabetes drugs either dropped in price or did not rise nearly as significantly as insulin.

Metformin, for instance, which as available as a generic, was down to 31 cents in 2013 from $1.24 per tablet in 2002. Also the new class of diabetes drugs known as DPP-4 inhibitors, were up 34 per cent since becoming available in 2006.

Meanwhile, nurses at the Rio Grande State Centre, Texas, said they were stopping diabetes from setting in among pre-diabetics.

People who were pre-diabetic had time to prevent Type 2 diabetes. They had glucose levels that were higher than normal, but the levels were not as high as in a diabetic patient.

In medical parlance pre-diabetes is called impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or impaired glucose fasting (IFG).

Diet and exercise are of key importance in the prevention of Type 2 diabetes.

People who are part of the prevention programme at the centre  have two goals, they need to lose 7 per cent of their weight through healthy eating and do 150 minutes of brisk, physical activity each week, which worked out to 30 minutes of physical activity a day for five days a week.

The programme achieves these goals through group sessions, with 12 weekly sessions forming the ''core''. The group then moves to a ''transition,'' which is four bi-weekly/monthly sessions, following which the group reaches its ''support'' phase for six monthly sessions.