A SPECIALIST has backed calls for urgent action to defuse the diabetes "time bomb", revealing that the number of people with the disease in Dorset has risen by more than a half in the last decade.

The charity Diabetes UK yesterday warned that future generations face lifelong ill health and an early grave unless something is done to tackle the growing trend towards obesity.

At the moment, there are 2.3 million diabetics in Britain. Ninety per cent of them have type two diabetes, which is closely associated with diet and lack of exercise. Up to a million more may have the disease and not realise it.

Dr Mike Masding, consultant diabetologist at Poole Hospital Foundation Trust, said: "Type two diabetes is a threat to health in the future. Locally, numbers of patients with it are increasing all the time. In the past it was thought to be a disease of old age, but now it's a disease of any age.

"If people are diagnosed in Poole, they come to a series of education sessions run by the diabetes team at the hospital. We regularly get at least 15 new patients every week. Some weeks it's up to 25.

"Every week we will have at least one person under the age of 30. Some are in their early twenties. We have a separate paediatric service where we have patients under the age of 18. The earlier the onset of obesity, the greater the risk."

Dr Masding added: "The most important treatment is losing weight. A large part of the education sessions is to help patients manage their own problem rather than dole out tablets."

He said two per cent of the Dorset population had diabetes in 1993. Now the figure is more than three per cent, a rise of 25-30,000 people. Studies show that type two diabetes shortens a person's life by up to 10 years.

Dr Masding said possible complications included loss of vision, heart and kidney disease. "At any one time, about 10 to 15 per cent of patients in hospital have diabetes."

Diabetes UK chief executive Douglas Smallwood said: "Studies have shown that changes to diet and levels of exercise can reduce new cases of type two diabetes by 58 per cent."