A shocking new report has claimed that as many as 30,000 Irish people could be suffering from undiagnosed Type II diabetes, and the true number could be even higher.

This week a report by Voluntary Health Insurance (VHI) health care provided the surprising new statistics, following their recent screening of 19,000 Irish people as part of one of the largest checks on the nation ever carried out.

Type II diabetes is the non-insulin dependent form of the disease and the Irish says there could also be as many as 146,000 cases of undetected pre-diabetes.

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In particular VHI attempted to determine the numbers of citizens potentially affected in Ireland’s 45-75 age group. The majority of those tested in this age range also proved to be at higher risk of heart disease as 63 per cent were either overweight or obese, 64 per cent had high cholesterol, and 25 per cent had high blood pressure.

Doctor Bernadette Carr, VHI’s Medical Director, told Journal.ie: 'We are facing a diabetes epidemic in the years ahead which will have a major impact on healthcare funding and delivery unless we can take steps to tackle this immediately.'

VHI plans to conduct a further 5,000 screenings this year.