The soaring rate of obesity in the UK has triggered a diabetes time bomb as the number of people who have disease rose by 65% in just the last decade.
More than four million people in Britain have the condition and experts fear the number could reach five million within another decade.
Concern has risen that the NHS will not be able to cope with the burden unless urgent action is taken to make profound changes to life styles, such as reducing the cost of healthy foods, force clearer labelling on products and end sedentary habits.
The UK is the second most obese nation in Europe, with Hungary (ironically) in the lead.
Nearly two thirds of men and women in Britain are overweight or obese. The figures go up with increasing age, leaving between 15 and 20% of people in their 60s and 70s suffering from diabetes.
Experts warned that worsening lifestyles mean the numbers are likely to rise, while the proportion of people contracting diabetes earlier is also expected to soar.
Last month the country’s chief medical officer suggested that obesity poses such a threat to the country that it should be treated as a “national risk” alongside terrorism.
Chris Askew, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said it is necessary for a "conncerted effort led by the Government to take active steps to address the fact that almost two in every three people in the UK are overweight or obese and are therefore at increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.”
The charity said more than 24,000 people with diabetes die prematurely every year due to failures in accessing the best type of care, such as checks for foot care and eyesight to prevent such complications as amputations, blindness and kidney failure.
Some 80% of the £10 billion of the annual NHS spend on diabetes is to treat complications that may have been preventable.
Insufficient education is available to help people manage their diabetes and many remain at the mercy of the old postcode lottery for such help, the charity claimed.
Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: "The NHS diabetes prevention programme, due to begin national rollout in the spring, will help people make the lifestyle changes that lessen their risk - eating more healthily, being more physically active and achieving a healthy weight and waist size."
