Diabetics warned of junk food heart peril

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JENNY HOPE, Daily Mail 09:56am 31st August 2004 Undetected diabetes is leaving

thousands of Britons at risk of a heart attack, doctors are warning.

Half of those with heart disease also have signs of diabetes, according to a

study.

 

Yet a huge number of diabetics go undiagnosed, putting them at risk of health

problems ranging from blindness to heart failure.

 

Doctors have warned that the number of diabetics is set to double by 2010.

 

And there has been a startling rise in children with the condition - developing

it up to 30 years earlier than normal because of the explosion in obesity.

 

Obesity is blamed for about 30,000 deaths a year in Britain and a recent survey

found one in four youngsters is overweight.

 

Junk food, sedentary lifestyles and the 'electronic babysitter' of TV are blamed

for creating a generation of couch potatoes.

 

But doctors fear children with diabetes will have it for longer - compared to

adults getting it in their 50s and 60s - putting them at higher risk of

complications.

 

Last night, Professor Sir Charles George, medical director of the British Heart

Foundation, said: " Having diabetes is the equivalent of having already had one

heart attack. "

 

About one in four heart patients has diabetes, the study released at the

European Society of Cardiology conference in Munich found.

 

Women face greater danger because they have double the risk of dying of a heart

attack.

 

An estimated one million Britons have undiagnosed diabetes - on top of the one

million being treated for the condition. But the new figures suggest one million

have pre-diabetes, which may progress to diabetes within ten years without

changes to lifestyle.

 

Most sufferers have type 2 diabetes, gradually losing the ability to process

blood sugar. Being overweight and inactive are the main causes.

 

In the latest study, involving 40 countries, doctors tested 43,000 people with

heart disease or at least one risk factor such as smoking or high blood

pressure. In total, 22% had previously undiagnosed diabetes and 28% had

pre-diabetes.

 

Professor John McMurray, consultant cardiologist at the Western Infirmary,

Glasgow, said GPs should test everyone at risk of heart disease for diabetes.

 

" If you don't recognise diabetes you can't prevent the damaging effects on

patients, " he added.

 

Professor Lars Ryden, a specialist from the Karolinska University Hospital,

Sweden, said: " People must eat less and walk more. If we shut off every

escalator on Earth, then we would reduce the level of diabetes. "