In hopes of earning global attention, WHO released its first Global Report on Diabetes in line with the celebration of World Health Day. The amount is quite substantial with a total number of 422 million people affected in 2014 compared to 108 million in 1980.
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The Canadian Diabetes Association says 3.4-million people in this country are impacted by the disease.
Diabetes caused 1.5 million deaths in 2012, and may have contributed to another 2.2 million deaths by increasing the risks of cardiovascular and other diseases.
“If we are to halt the rise in diabetes, we need to rethink our daily lives, to eat healthy, be active and avoid excessive weight gain”.
The WHO report said the organization is updating its guidelines on fat and carbohydrate intake, but said adults can reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes through regular exercise and a healthy diet that cuts back on sugary foods.
In the US, 29.1 million people had diabetes in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As the world’s waistlines have ballooned, with one-in-three people now overweight, so too has the number of diabetes cases”, says the BBC’s health editor, James Gallagher.
A nurse collects a blood sample from a policeman using a glucometer at a free diabetic health check-up camp on World Health Day in Hyderabad, India on April 7, 2016.
World Health Organization notes that diabetes is a chronic, progressive noncommunicable disease characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose. “But change greatly depends on governments doing more, including by implementing global commitments to address diabetes and other NCDs”.
The President’s Office will be holding an event on diabetes in November, the Department of Information said. “Today in most low income countries, people who have diabetes and need access to medicine and technology to manage it don’t have access to it”, he said.
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Type 1 diabetes usually diagnosed in children is due to lack of insulin production, and the treatment is totally dependent on insulin. Coordinated worldwide and national policies are needed to create awareness of the risk factors for diabetes and to improve access to and quality of diabetes care.
