Diabetes Poised To Become Aids of the 20th Century Part 1

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http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com/newsletter/1june02/diabetes.htm

 

Diabetes

poised to become

" AIDS of the 21st Century "

 

© By Peter Chowka

All rights reserved

 

(June 1, 2002) After decades of being largely neglected and overlooked, diabetes

is finally being recognized - by the medical Establishment, policy makers, and

the media - as a growing threat to human health and a significant drain on the

$1.5 trillion-a-year US health care system.

 

Professor Sir George Alberti, President of the International Diabetes Federation

(IDF), in a speech at the group's meeting in Montreux, Switzerland on May 29,

raised a new alarm about the condition when he said " Diabetes could become the

AIDS of the 21st century. "

 

Diabetes is a chronic illness in which a person's ability to metabolize glucose

is impaired or destroyed. It is associated with a range of debilitating

complications, a significantly higher death rate, and a shortened life span.

 

There are two forms of the disease, called Type 1 and Type 2. According to the

IDF, " Diabetes remains the industrialised world's leading cause of blindness,

end-stage renal disease, and non-traumatic limb amputations. Type 2 diabetes

increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases by two or three fold, and eight

out of ten people with the condition will die from a cardiovascular disease. "

 

Most people with diabetes have Type 2. About ten percent have Type 1, an

incurable autoimmune disorder that destroys insulin-producing cells in the

pancreas. This causes a high level of glucose in the blood, and low absorption

of the vital energy-producing glucose by the tissues. Multiple insulin

injections per day are necessary for the life of the Type 1 patient to keep him

or her alive. A person with Type 1 diabetes must constantly monitor his or her

blood sugar levels, which can fluctuate radically. Excessively low or high blood

sugar can occur without warning and result in loss of consciousness, brain

damage, or sudden death.

 

The Type 2 form of the disease, in its early stages less severe than Type 1, is

nonetheless very debilitating. In Type 2, the body's ability to metabolize

carbohydrate is not destroyed but is impaired, usually after long term dietary

imbalances and/or an excessively sedentary lifestyle, both of which can cause

obesity. In the past, Type 2 was called " Adult Onset " because it mainly affected

people in middle age and older. The term " Adult Onset " has been retired,

however, because the condition is now increasingly prevalent in young adults,

and even in pre- and post-adolescent children, primarily because of lifestyle

factors.

 

For years, both types of diabetes have been given short shrift in favor of

conditions like AIDS and breast cancer that have better organized and more vocal

constituencies or are considered to be more politically correct. The government

currently spends 40 to 100 times as much on AIDS research per AIDS death when

compared to diabetes for every death from diabetes.

 

Recently, however, new attention has started to focus on diabetes. Awareness of

Type 1 was raised during " Children's Congress 2001, " sponsored by the Juvenile

Diabetes Foundation in Washington, D.C. June 24-27, 2001. The events culminated

in a special Hearing on Juvenile Diabetes on Capitol Hill before the US Senate

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations broadcast by C-Span and featuring

actress, diabetes patient and activist Mary Tyler Moore, former astronaut and

Apollo 13 commander Capt. James Lovell, medical experts, and a large number of

young children with the disease.

 

Attention to Type 2 (unlike Type 1, a largely preventable condition) is also

increasing, presumably, as the IDF's Sir Alberti suggested, because the

incidence of Type 2 is reaching near epidemic proportions and along with it, the

prospect of out of control costs.

 

For example, CBS News, in a story broadcast on February 4, 2002, noted that " 18

million Americans " have Type 2 " in what some are calling the most urgent public

health crisis of our time — a diabetes epidemic racking up 800,000 new cases

every year. " The story continued, " CBS News Medical Correspondent Elizabeth

Kaledin reports that obesity, inactivity and aging are to blame for this

disease. "

 

The May 2002 issue of the medical journal Pediatrics includes an article titled

" Economic Burden of Obesity in Youths Aged 6 to 17 Years: 1979–1999. " The study

" examine the trend of obesity-associated diseases in youths and related

economic costs. " It finds that the approximate doubling of obesity rates in

children over the past twenty years is associated with the doubling of rates of

diabetes incidence (to 2.36 percent of children's hospitalizations), as well.

According to the IDF (May 29), " Type 2 diabetes currently affects 1 in 20

European adults (22.5 million). A further 1 in 7 adults over 40 years of age

have a condition known as impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), which confers a high

risk of diabetes and a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Approximately half of people with IGT will develop diabetes within ten years. .

..Unless significant efforts are made to stem the rise in diabetes, healthcare

services across the world will soon be crippled by the costs of treating the

diseases and its complications. "

The IDF noted, " Recent large-scale clinical trials have shown that frequent

lifestyle advice, delivered by a health professional, is effective at reducing

[Type 2] diabetes incidence in people at high risk. . .Professor Alberti. .

..called for people with impaired glucose tolerance to be managed much more

aggressively with lifestyle change and weight control and drug therapy for

lifestyle advice failures. "

Alternative medicine has a lot to offer both people with diabetes (especially in

terms of avoiding its debilitating complications) and individuals at risk of

developing the disease. In Part II, we will explore some of these modalities.

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