Diabetes epidemic looms
But early detection and treatment of the disease, which is linked to obesity and poor diet, could deliver huge cost savings to the overburdened Irish health system, doctors in the mid-west said yesterday.
Half the estimated diabetes sufferers in Ireland are unaware they have a condition which can pose serious health problems if not detected and treated, the doctors said.
Responding to huge interest from patients, Barrington’s Hospital in Limerick yesterday held a health and diabetes information day when patients worried about the disease were given blood tests and could avail of the services of a specialist and dietician.
“The demand for an information day came from patients,” consultant physician Mary Ryan said.
“I was being asked to give multiple lectures and the only way to hit it was to hold an information day on diabetes,” Dr Ryan said.
Dietician Catherine Hall explained that while diabetes was not curable, it was treatable.
Studies show that obesity affects up to one in three of the population in some Western countries, prompting the World Health Organisation to call diabetes the next major world epidemic.
Non-insulin dependent diabetes can give rise to heart attacks, strokes, blindness, limb amputations, kidney failure and osteoporosis. It usually affects people aged over 35, but can be controlled by changes in diet and lifestyle.
Globally, the incidence of diabetes is expected to exceed 250 million by the year 2025 as unhealthy diets, obesity and sedentary lifestyles exact their toll on ageing populations.
