Diabetes epidemic in kids soon: IDA president
POSTED November 4, 2009 - 15:36 | POSTED BY Jaspreet Kaur
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on November 4, 2009 - 17:21
Not only this, South East Asia will have 1.2 lakh children suffering from Type 1 diabetes by 2010. This was revealed by International Diabetes Federation (IDF) President Jean Claude Mbanya.
What is even more worrying is that a large number of such children will be in India, which is considered the diabetes capital of the world.
Mbanya was quoted as saying, “Children eat the fried food and drink soft drinks with fizz and sit before a computer after school. Now, type II diabetes in children is also going up.”
Globalisation of food marketing and economic development are other factors that are adding to the problem, Mbanya said.
Developing countries worst affected
Elaborating further, he said, “Four out of five people with diabetes in the world are going to be in developing countries in the future. India and China are on the top order for diabetes prevalence, and countries like Ghana, Mauritius, Tonga and others are catching up.”
If diabetes in children has to be controlled, the key lies in educating them and adding to the existing knowledge of people.
India not doing enough to curtail diabetes
Also, more money needs to be spent on treating diabetes as the number of children suffering from type I and type II diabetes is rapidly going up in developing countries.
Mbanya explained, “India spends less than one per cent of the total world expenditure on diabetes though it tops the world countries in prevalence of the disease. So, people of India are not getting proper diabetes care.”
Developing countries are not doing much and this is reflected in the fact that “Fifty per cent of this money is spent in the USA, while only three per cent is spent in developing countries. Developing countries spend more money on HIV, but very less on diabetes which kills four million people a year,” Mbanya said.
Diabetes on the verge of becoming an epidemic
In the coming years, diabetes will affect thousands of people across the globe as its prevalence is going to increase by more than 12 percent.
India will have a massive 87 million people suffering from diabetes by 2030 and it already tops the list of countries when it comes to the spread of the disease.
It has been estimated that global spending on diabetes will be $376 million by 2010.
