Getting diagnosed with type 2 diabetes before the age of 30 could potentially reduce your life expectancy by around 14 years, a recent study says.

Previous studies have shown that diabetes can reduce life expectancy by a median of six years. The team behind the newest study aimed to offer accurate estimates of how the age of diabetes diagnosis affects life expectancy and various points of mortality.

In accordance with the findings, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, every decade of earlier diagnosis was related to about three to 4 years of lower life expectancy. Even when an individual gets diabetes later in life, by around 50, it might probably still reduce life expectancy by as much as six years.

Data from two large-scale data sources – the Emerging Risk Aspects Collaboration and the UK Biobank, which have details about participants from 19 high-income countries – was used for the study.

“Using death rates from the U.S., a 50-year-old individual with diabetes died on average 14 years earlier when diagnosed aged 30 years, 10 years earlier when diagnosed aged 40 years, or 6 years earlier when diagnosed aged 50 years than a person without diabetes,” the researchers wrote.

“Type 2 diabetes was seen as a disease that affected older adults, but we’re increasingly seeing people diagnosed earlier in life. As we have shown, this implies they’re liable to a much shorter life expectancy than they might otherwise have,” said Professor Emanuele Di Angelantonio, a study writer from the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute (VPD-HLRI) on the University of Cambridge.

Deaths as a consequence of heart attack, stroke, aneurysms and cancer are essentially the most common causes that reduce longevity in diabetes patients.

“Given the impact type 2 diabetes may have on people’s lives, stopping – or a minimum of delaying the onset – of the condition must be an urgent priority. Type 2 diabetes might be prevented if those at best risk might be identified and offered support – whether that is to make changes to their behavior or to offer medication to lower their risk. But there are also structural changes that we as a society must be pursuing, including regarding food manufacturing, changes to the built environment to encourage more physical activity, and so forth,” Angelantonio said.

“Our findings support the concept that the younger a person is once they develop type 2 diabetes, the more damage their body accumulates from its impaired metabolism. However the findings also suggest that early detection of diabetes by screening followed by intensive glucose management could help prevent long-term complications from the condition,” noted study co-author Professor Naveed Sattar, from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow.