Last Updated: 2003-04-03 16:58:40 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Elderly people with diabetes are likely to need help bathing, dressing and performing other basic needs earlier than their non-diabetic peers, new study findings show.

UK researchers found that a diabetes diagnosis is associated with both shorter life expectancies and shorter "active" life expectancies, meaning an individual's ability to independently perform the routine activities of daily living.

"Diabetes significantly reduces the quality of remaining life of the oldest-old with diabetes -- in terms of the ability to self-care," study author Dr. Carol Jagger of the University of Leicester told Reuters Health.

"Moreover, as they age, people with diabetes spend an increasing proportion of their remaining lives with disability, highlighting the need to regularly monitor elderly people with diabetes," Jagger and her colleagues write in the Journal of Public Health Medicine.

Their study included 2,474 people age 75 and older, including 212 people with diabetes -- a condition that is becoming increasingly prevalent in England, they note.

Diabetes affects about 1.4 million people in the UK, or three in every 100 adults, according to the charity Diabetes UK. In the U.S., as well, it is growing fast and currently affects an estimated 17 million Americans, according to the American Diabetes Association.

In the new study, participants went through routine health assessments, in which their "active" life expectancy was calculated based on whether they were deemed active or inactive.

They were considered active if they were able to independently perform at least six of seven daily living activities, such as moving around their home, going to and from the bathroom, dressing and bathing.

Over a two-year period, the researchers found that diabetics not only had shorter life expectancies, as has previously been reported, but they also had shorter active life expectancies.

In fact, elderly diabetics had two less years in which they were able to perform daily life activities without any assistance than did their peers, findings show.

And from age 85 onward, the diabetics spent 10 percent less of their remaining life able to perform daily activities on their own.

Overall, diabetics also had higher rates of impaired vision and high blood pressure and were more likely to rate their health as fair or poor than non-diabetics.

Jagger pointed out that although overall life expectancy is increasing, so is obesity -- a major risk factor for diabetes.

"So," Jagger said, "we are likely to have more older people with diabetes who will need regular monitoring and will consume more health services."