According to a new study, patients with diabetes comprise one out of every three hospitalizations in California. The comprehensive study focused on the prevalence of diabetes in hospitals and how it impacts providers and increasing health care costs.

The study was conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research with support from the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and focused on hospital discharge records.

Researchers discovered that among patients ages 35 or older who were hospitalized in California, 31 percent had diabetes. This age group accounts for the highest number of hospitalizations.

The negative impact that diabetes is having on the state’s health care costs is emphasized by the disproportionate number of people who have diabetes, even if the disease is not the primary reason for these hospitalizations.

Ying-Ying Mieng, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said in a statement, “If you have diabetes, you are more likely to be hospitalized, and your stay will cost more.” Ming continues, “There is now overwhelming evidence to show that diabetes is devastating not just to patients and families but to the whole health care system.”

The disease is one of the fastest growing in the country, and is also one of the costliest. The study notes that diabetes adds on an extra $1.6 billion per year to existing hospitalization costs in California.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County had a 33.1 percent rate of hospitalizations among diabetic patients in 2011, with a total of over 220,000. Report estimates state that in 2011 alone, the added costs of treating diabetes in LA county totaled close to $491 million.