|
|
HEALTH-U.S.: Wall Street May Offer Key to Diabetes Control - Expert
By Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Jun 25, 2003 (IPS) - With soaring diabetes rates inextricably tied to a global obesity epidemic, some experts wonder how prevention campaigns will work without also aggressively targeting the industries that profit from unhealthy lifestyles.
According to the latest figures from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), diabetes - which can lead to blindness, heart disease, coma and death - will eventually afflict one in three U.S. children born in 2000.
Stopping this from happening would not require costly drugs or treatments. Just a little exercise and leaner diet can make a huge difference, doctors say. "Just 30 minutes of walking or physical activity five times a week can reduce your risk for developing diabetes by as much as 58 percent, "noted Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan, chief of the CDC's diabetes epidemiology section.
But some doctors with long experience in treating the disease say the political does not exist to launch a full-scale offensive against the "couch potato" culture with its super-fatty foods, so popular both in the United States and abroad.
"The U.S. government, U.S. businesses and world governments are not likely to do much of anything to address the underlying causes," Dr. David Schlundt, a psychology professor at the Diabetes Center of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee state, told IPS. "Our economy is totally dependent upon cars, fast foods and convenience foods."
"This will be a very difficult problem to solve," he added. "The solutions may be difficult and may involve taking on powerful industries, much like the states took on the tobacco industry. There is not enough resolve to take on these monster industries and to force changes that will make our environment promote healthy rather than unhealthy choices when it comes to food and physical activity."
One of those "monster industries" is clearly the fast food business, which, on any given day in the United States, feeds about 25 percent of the U.S. population, according to journalist Eric Schlosser in his best-seller 'Fast Food Nation'.
Over the last decade, diabetes rates surged almost 50 percent in the United States, to about 17 million. Globally, 150 million adults now suffer from the disease, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) that number may well double by 2025.
North America has the highest incidence, followed by the Middle East and Western Pacific regions.
The main problem? "Americans are becoming more overweight and get much less physical exercise," Narayan told the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in New Orleans.
Diabetics fall into two categories - Type 1, which is hereditary and usually emerges during infancy or adolescence, and Type 2, which is generally adult-onset and related to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. Most diabetics are Type 2.
The disease is triggered by malfunctioning levels of insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas that regulates blood sugar levels. It is either absent or impaired in diabetics, who must regulate their diets, inject synthetic insulin, or both.
Diabetes is one of the most dangerous consequences of the world's growing obesity crisis. Today, some 64 percent of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese - double the obesity rate of 20 years ago. Last year, the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute reported that, for the first time in history, the number of overweight people in the world outstripped those who are malnourished.
The International Diabetes Federation, an umbrella group of 183 member associations in 142 countries, notes that "in many developing countries (as well as developed ones) decision makers lack awareness of diabetes and the political will to invest in prevention''.
Some health care providers remain cautiously optimistic.
"I believe that governments and global health agencies are waking up to this growing problem and recognising that the health of our children and therefore our future is in jeopardy," Martha Funnell, a director of the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Centre, told IPS.
"For example, the American Diabetes Association is focusing on some efforts to ensure that children have healthy lunch choices and gym or recess times available at school," Funnell said. "But ultimately it comes down to families making a decision to take control of their eating and exercise habits, and their health."
That's exactly what Danielle Brown's parents did when they were both diagnosed with diabetes in their mid-thirties. "It was definitely a wake-up call," Brown, 20, told IPS. "I've totally changed how I eat, everything low-fat, low-sugar. I may still get diabetes, but diet and exercise is all I have to work with. Of course I'm not glad that my parents got it, but that's the only way my eating habits were going to change."
Brown is African American, which puts her at a higher risk for diabetes, among other diseases. Latino children fare even worse - in the latest CDC estimate, their odds of developing diabetes were about 50-50.
Indigenous people are also hard-hit. In some U.S. tribes, the prevalence rate of diabetes is 50 percent of the adults over age 35 - one of the highest rates in the world. Native Hawaiians have a diabetes-related mortality rate that is six times that of the general U.S. population. In Australia, diabetes rates among aboriginal peoples are two to six times the rate for Australians of European origin.
"We don't really know how to influence the lifestyles of hundreds of millions of people in order to turn around the obesity and diabetes epidemic," said Schlundt. "The WHO is basically powerless to do anything about the problem other than draw attention to it and perhaps develop some recommendations that will be very difficult for governments to implement."
(END)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
