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HomeNewsWHO: N422m adults live with diabetes

WHO: N422m adults live with diabetes

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised the alarm over the increase in diabetic cases. It stated that the number of people living with diabetes worldwide has almost quadrupled since 1980 to 422 million adults, with most living in developing countries.

This was contained in WHO’s “Global Report on Diabetes” in which the world body highlighted the need to step up prevention and treatment of the disease so as to check the trend. Similarly, it urged governments to ensure that people were able to make healthy choices and that health systems are able to diagnose and treat people with diabetes. The report was presented by the Director General of the WHO, Dr.Margaret Chan, ahead of the World Health Day, today, Thursday, March 7.

The report was issued to mark the 2016 World Health Day tagged: “Beat Diabetes”. It documented the number of people living with diabetes with its prevalence growing in all regions of the world. It said that in 2014, 422 million adults had diabetes, compared with 108 million in 1980.

The epidemic of diabetes has major health and socio-economic impacts, especially in developing countries. Diabetes caused 1.5 million deaths in 2012. According to the report, higher-than-optimal blood glucose caused an additional 2.2 million deaths by increasing the risks of cardiovascular and other diseases.

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Type 2 diabetes, which results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin is far more common and can be influenced by lifestyle as well as genetic and metabolic factors. Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glycemia (IFG) are elevated glucose levels not yet at the level of diabetes but which nonetheless increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Additionally, pregnant women can develop gestational diabetes, increasing the risk of complications and the long-term risk of type 2 diabetes.

World Health Day celebrates the WHO’s founding in 1948 and the theme for 2016 is on a call for action on diabetes. According to the report, some of the factors driving this dramatic rise in diabetes include overweight and obesity.

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