Obesity fuels

Obesity fuels fears of faster diabetes rise

Obesity are controlled, health experts said: The prevalence of diabetes worldwide will far outstrip even the sharp increase currently projected unless rising trends.

Diabetes has been linked to risk factors like aging, an immobile lifestyle, unhealthy diets, smoking, alcohol & obesity. The silent, chronic disease damages the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves and was responsible for 3.8 million deaths worldwide in 2007.

International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) estimates a current prevalence of 246 million diabetes cases worldwide and projects it would reach 380 million in near 2025.

"The projections are conservative because they take into account only aging and urbanization but not obesity, which if unarrested, will lead to more cases," Gojka Roglic of the World Health Organization's diabetes program told a regional diabetes conference in Chennai, southern India.

Roglic said not a single country in the world had shown any signs of a plateau for obesity.

"If you don't have a park to walk in, if the traffic is too dangerous, then people won't be encouraged to walk or ride bicycles or if there is crime and someone will kill you for your bike, then you won't be encouraged to cycle."

Anthony Harries, senior adviser with the London based International Union Against Tuberculosis (TB) and Lung Diseases, warned of the increased risks of developing active tuberculosis that come with diabetes.

"It was recognized even in ancient Roman times that people with urine that was sweet had increased risk of tuberculosis," he told the conference, adding that a diabetic was three times more likely to develop active TB than a non-diabetic.

India carries the highest diabetes burden in the world, with 41 million cases in 2007, projected to hit 70 million by 2025. The problem is worsening in rural India, which now has a prevalence of 9.2 percent among people aged 20 years and older, up from 2.2 percent in 1983. The rate in urban areas is 18.6 percent, compared with 11.2 percent in 1998.

Apart from a more sedentary lifestyle, experts say the propensity for diabetes among Indians may also be due to a switch, linked to rising affluence, to eating polished rice which has much more sugar than crude, unpolished rice.