1 in 11 suffer from diabetes globally: WHO report

The number of adults estimated to be living with diabetes has nearly quadrupled over 35 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, urging huge efforts to change eating habits and increase physical activity.

“Globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes in 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980,” the UN health agency said in its first-ever report on the disease, warning that the condition had spread because of worldwide changes “in the way people eat, move and live.” The disease directly caused 1.5 million deaths in 2012 — the latest available global figures — but elevated blood glucose levels linked to diabetes were responsible for an additional 2.2 million deaths that year, the report said.

The region worst affected, with 131 million estimated cases in 2014, was the WHO’s Western Pacific region, which includes China and Japan. The Southeast Asia region — which includes heavily populated India and Indonesia — was the next most affected, with 96 million cases. Europe and the Americas were third and fourth on the list, with 64 million and 62 million cases respectively.

Diabetes is divided into two types. There is no known way to prevent type one, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin. Most people living with diabetes have type 2, which is associated with obesity and other lifestyle factors and emerges in adults and increasingly among children.

To curb the intensifying burden of the disease, huge efforts were needed to change “eating and physical activity habits,” especially early in life, when key behavioural patterns are formed, World Health Organization said. Noting that in 2012 there were an estimated 2.2 lakh diabetes related deaths in India, Indian Society of Clinical Research said that there is an urgent need to focus on prevention, early detection and treatment of diabetes to effectively combat the chronic disease.