The threat is being called "crippling." As diabetes diagnoses increase every day, so do the costs of treating the condition. There seems to be no end to the increase, in both cases. This has many people worried about the future of available healthcare.

"The projections are that unless this epidemic is turned around, it has the capacity to cripple all healthcare budgets," said Professor Martin Silink, president-elect of the IDF.

Most developed countries spend around 10 percent of their healthcare budgets on diabetes now. But the illness, which is often linked with obesity, is increasing at the rate of about 7 million new cases a year worldwide.

"Healthcare budgets will just not be able to cope," Silink told Reuters.

The IDF, which presented its findings at the European diabetes meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, believes Eastern European nations have a higher risk of seeing their economies disrupted by the diabetes epidemic.

It's not as though available healthcare is stellar now. What if it gets worse? What can be done?