The number of Americans suffering from diabetes continued to increase during 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported recently, rising to more than 8 percent of the total U.S. population.

The CDC said nearly 2 million people aged 20 or over were diagnosed with diabetes this year, and over half of them were between 45 and 64 years of age.

The continuing rise of diabetes in the American population - many public health experts already consider the condition to have reached epidemic proportions - has also become a serious financial issue, the CDC reported. The direct medical costs of treating the country's diabetes sufferers in 2007 was $116 billion, meaning that each diabetic in American was responsible for more than twice as much healthcare expenditure compared to non-diabetics, on average.

In addition, the CDC said, the indirect cost to the country - in lost work hours, premature deaths and disability insurance - was $58 billion over the course of the same year. Experts say those numbers are likely to be far higher, given the incidence of diabetes seen over the past several years.