Close to 350 million people in the world have diabetes, and the
prevalence is rising rapidly, particularly in low- and middle-income
countries. There is much all of us can do to minimize our risk of
getting the disease and, even if we do get it, to live long and healthy
lives with it.
People who have diabetes lose their ability to properly regulate
their blood sugar. Out-of-control blood sugar can lead to nerve damage,
heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and lower-limb
amputation.
Most people with diabetes have a form of the illness — type 2 — that
disproportionately strikes people who are overweight and sedentary.
This means that the steps we take to steer clear of type 2 diabetes are
the same steps we can take to maintain good health.
“Steps” is the right word. Anyone who can stand instead of sit,
walks a little bit more each day and is generally more active should do
so.
Diabetes also affects our wallets. Many who suffer complications
lose their incomes because they cannot work. Moreover, treatment can be
expensive. Insulin is unaffordable for many people in low- and
middle-income countries, where most people with diabetes live. Even in
high-income countries the cost has increased in recent years beyond the
reach of many. For those people who produce none of their own insulin —
as in type 1 of the disease — going without insulin is a death
sentence.
Just as individuals must take steps to live healthy lives, so can
Governments create enabling environments. Health facilities can expand
care for diabetes. The private sector can improve the availability and
affordability of healthier products and essential medicines.
The world recently took a major step in adopting the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development and incorporating a target to reduce by one
third the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases, including
diabetes, by 2030.
On World Diabetes Day, let us recognize the progress we have made,
but let us also acknowledge that it is not yet enough. Let us all step
up to limit the impact of diabetes.
Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations.
To mark World Diabetes Day on 14 November,
WHO is calling for greater action to turn the growing tide of the global
diabetes epidemic.
WHO is also marking World Diabetes Day by announcing that the
Organization’s annual World Health Day, which recognizes its birthday on
7 April, will focus on the issue of diabetes.
World Health Day will provide an important platform for
promoting efforts to prevent diabetes and ensure optimal management of
the condition for people living with one of the various forms of
disease.
Multiple actions can be done to reduce the impact of diabetes,
through adopting healthy lifestyles, such as partaking in physical
activity and healthy diets, to government action on curbing the
marketing of unhealthy foods and ensuring health systems provide the
required services and care for people living with the disease.
World Health Day 2016 on diabetes
As the prevalence of diabetes increases, the need to learn how
to minimize one’s risk of getting it, and to know how to detect and
treat it, are all increasing in importance. That is why WHO is promoting
efforts to highlight the disease on the next World Health Day, 7 April
2016.
Through World Health Day 2016, WHO will seek to:
- increase awareness about the rise in diabetes, and its staggering
burden and consequences, in particular in low-and middle-income
countries;
- trigger a set of specific, effective and affordable actions to
tackle diabetes. These will include steps to prevent diabetes and
diagnose, treat and care for people with diabetes;
- launch the first Global report on diabetes which will
describe the burden and consequences of diabetes and advocate for
stronger health systems to ensure improved surveillance, enhanced
prevention, and more effective management of diabetes.
Importantly, the world took a major step recently to address
the diabetes epidemic by setting a target to reduce by one-third the
deaths attributed to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including
diabetes, by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this
regard, WHO helps countries put in place policies to minimize the impact
of NCDs, which include diabetes, cancers, and cardiovascular and lung
diseases.
Background
Close to 350 million people in the world have diabetes, a
chronic disease that occurs when the body does not produce enough
insulin or when it cannot effectively use the insulin it does produce to
help the body metabolize the sugar that is formed from the food we eat.
Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar, which gives
us the energy we need to live. Unable to get into the cells to be burned
as energy, the sugar can build up to harmful levels in the blood.
In 2012, diabetes was the direct cause of some 1.5 million
deaths, with more than 80% of them occurring in low- and middle-income
countries. WHO projects that diabetes will be the 7thleading cause of
death by 2030.
There are two main forms of the disease. People with type 1
diabetes typically make none of their own insulin and therefore require
insulin injections for survival. People with type 2 diabetes, the form
that comprises some 90% of all cases, usually produce their own insulin,
but not enough or they are unable to use it properly. People with type 2
diabetes are typically overweight and sedentary.
Over time, high blood sugars can wreak havoc on every major
organ system in the body, causing heart attacks, strokes, kidney
failure, blindness, impotence and infections that can lead to
amputations.
But, properly treated, the impact of diabetes can be
minimised. Even people with type 1 diabetes can live long and healthy
lives if they keep their blood sugars under tight control.
Forum : November 14 - World Diabetes Day
Resources :
On World Diabetes Day, UN calls for greater action to turn tide of growing global epidemic
