Study indicates that direct, indirect costs of diabetes were $218 billion last year.

The AP reports that a study, "conducted by the Lewin Group consultants," puts the total financial costs for diabetes "at $218 billion last year -- the first comprehensive estimate of the financial toll diabetes takes." The Lewin Group "figure includes direct medical care costs, from insulin and pills for controlling patients' blood sugar to amputations and hospitalizations, plus indirect costs such as lost productivity, disability and early retirement." The figure "amounts to about 10 percent of all U.S. healthcare spending by government and the public, about $2.1 trillion in 2006, and nearly half the $448.5 billion cost of heart disease and stroke." In addition, "the new study adds estimates for people who haven't been diagnosed yet ($18 billion), women who develop diabetes temporarily during pregnancy ($636 million) and those on track to develop diabetes, an increasingly common condition called pre-diabetes ($25 billion)."