Health@Heart
Diabesity: A Massive Epidemic
Diabesity is one of the greatest public health challenges the world is facing in the 21st century. It is a battle the human race cannot afford to lose.
A relatively new descriptive term combining two closely related disease entities, diabetes and obesity, is spreading like wildfire in the clinical setting, posing great challenges, not only to the patient and the physician but also to society and human race as a whole. Diabesity is now a major epidemic, the most massive man has ever faced.
As Professor Paul Zimmet, Director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, recently stated on a WebMD telecast, “What HIV/AIDS was in the last 20 years of the 20th century, diabetes and obesity and their consequences will almost certainly be in the first 2 decades of the 21st century.”
Worldwide, in the last few decades, victims of diabetes have increased more than twice, and expected to grow from its current 246 million to 380 million in 18 years, by 2025, according to the report from the International Diabetes Institute in Australia.
In this column two yeas ago, we stated that the rapid growth in the incidence of diabetes mellitus was a metabolic time bomb that was waiting to explode, brought on by, among others, “super-sizing” of America (and obviously, the Philippines and other countries also), where 90% of Type II diabetics were (are) overweight. The causal relationship between obesity (being overweight, even only to a moderate degree) and the higher risk of developing diabetes is a medically proven fact.
Actually, 2 out of 3 (66.6%) adult Americans, and 15% of the children, are overweight. In the United States alone, there are about 17 million diabetics. Five to 10% have Type I (juvenile), and the rest, Type II (adult onset) diabetes. Before insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, type 1 diabetes had 100% mortality. In the past 10 years, there has been a 33% increased in the number of diabetic patients. It is indeed scary.
The other grim statistics that confirm the radpidly developing epidemic of diabetes include the following:
- An infant born in the USA in year 2000 has 1 in 3 chances (33%) to get the disease;
- Shortening the life span by 10-15 years, diabetes is now the 6th leading cause of death, killing 210,000 people a year in the United States alone;
- Diabetes is also the major cause of heart and kidney diseases, leg amputation and blindness;
- The incidence of clinical depression is 3 times more among diabetics;
- In the United States (population: 302.86 million), there are about 18.2 million diabetics (9.3 million are women), about 1.3 million new cases a year ago, and 5.2 million undiagnosed or unaware. An additional 16 million Americans are in a “pre-diabetic” stage;
- By year 2050, about 29 million Americans will be diagnosed with diabetes;
- The United States is spending $132 billion a year in direct healthcare cost and in lost of productivity;
- In a small country, like the Philippines, with a population of 91 million, there are more than 300,000 Filipinos who suffer from Diabetes Mellitus; and,
- Worldwide, with its population of a little more than 6.6 billion people, there are about 150 million Type II diabetics and 18 million Type I.
During our parents’ time, diabetes was a disease of old people; today, physicians are seeing patients as young as 4 with diabetes. Over-eating and obesity are blamed for this and for the rising number of cases of adult-onset diabetes in general, worldwide. It is clear today that our diet should not only be calorie-controlled, low-fat, and low-cholesterol but also low in carbohydrates (like rice, bread, non-diet soft drinks, fruit juices and milk shakes, sugar-loaded morning cereals, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and sweets in general). A diet of fish or chicken (white meat minus the skin), vegetables, and high-fiber whole grains and nuts, has been shown to be healthier, and better for longevity. Eating red meat has been associated with an elevated risk of developing any of the various types of cancers, like breast, colon, prostate, pancreas, etc. Smoking also increases the risk for diabetes, not to mention cancer of the lungs and other forms of cancers.
In this regard, Type II diabetes is, to a great extent, preventable. The question is, are we willing to discipline ourselves, do some sacrifices, control our appetite and weight through healthy lifestyle changes, including daily exercises, abstinence from tobacco and alcohol abuse to escape this much-dreaded, severely debilitating, and costly global epidemic that has tragic consequences, not only to the patient but to the nation and to the whole world in general ?
On the international arena, if the governments of all nations on earth, who, so far, have been very slow to respond to this rapidly developing medical “tsunami,” do not act in a prompt and concerted global effort to stem this disaster staring us in the face, the socio-economic consequences of Diabesity will, predictably, and eventually, bankrupt the economies of all countries around the world, including a rich nation like the United States.
Indeed, diabesity is one of the greatest public health challenges the world is facing in the 21st century. It is a battle the human race cannot afford to lose.
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