The world is losing the battle against diabetes as the number of people estimated to be living with the disease soars to a new record of 382 million this year, medical experts said on Thursday.
The vast majority have type 2 diabetes – the kind linked to obesity and lack of exercise – and the epidemic is spreading as more people in the developing world adopt Western, urban lifestyles.
The latest estimate from the International Diabetes Federation is equivalent to a global prevalence rate of 8.4 percent of the adult population and compares to 371 million cases in 2012.
By 2035, the organization predicts the number of cases will have soared by 55 percent to 592 million.
“The battle to protect people from diabetes and its disabling, life-threatening complications is being lost,” the federation said in the sixth edition of its Diabetes Atlas, noting that deaths from the disease were now running at 5.1 million a year or one every six seconds.
People with diabetes have inadequate blood sugar control, which can lead to a range of dangerous complications, including damage to the eyes, kidneys and heart. If left untreated, it can result in premature death.
“Year after year, the figures seem to be getting worse,” said David Whiting, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at the federation. “All around the world we are seeing increasing numbers of people developing diabetes.”
He said that a strategy involving all parts of society was needed to improve diets and promote healthier lifestyles.
The federation calculates diabetes already accounts for annual healthcare spending of $548 billion and this is likely to rise to $627 billion by 2035.
Worryingly, an estimated 175 million of diabetes cases are as yet undiagnosed, so a huge number of people are progressing towards complications unawares. Most of them live in low- and middle-income countries with far less access to medical care than in the United States and Europe.
The country with the most diabetics overall is China, where the case load is expected to rise to 142.7 million in 2035 from 98.4 million at present.
But the highest prevalence rates are to be found in the Western Pacific, where more than a third of adults in Tokelau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands are already living with the disease.
Pharmaceutical companies have developed a range of medicines over the years to counter diabetes but many patients still struggle to control their condition adequately, leading to a continuing hunt for improved treatments.
Novo Nordisk, Sanofi and Eli Lilly are all major suppliers of insulin and other diabetes therapies.
Source: Reuters
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incomplete, so it’s impressive that this edible ice cream dish rose to fame after an impromptu act. The ice cream cone gained popularity in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair when Syrian concessionaire, Ernest Hamwi, decided to roll up some of his crisp, waffle-like pastries (also known as zalabia) to help out a neighboring ice cream vendor who ran out of dishes.
to a positive outcome, but a revolutionary one.’ In 1965, scientist Dr. James Schlatter was working on an anti-ulcer drug when he went to lick his finger to pick up a piece of paper. His finger tasted sweet, so he traced back his steps and realized that the sweet-tasting substance was aspartame. Today, this popular low-calorie sweetener (which is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose) can be found in many popular foods.
preparing a batch of butter drop cookies for her guests at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, Ruth Wakefield decided to stick pieces of a NESTLÉ® chocolate bar into the cookie dough, expecting it to dissolve once baked. Instead, the chocolate maintained its shape. NESTLÉ® quickly caught wind of the discovery and placed Wakefield’s recipe on their chocolate bar wrappers, where it still remains today. In 1997, to honor the popular recipe’s origin, Massachusetts designated the chocolate chip cookie as its official state cookie. If you ever need some validation that failure can lead to success, take at look back at the beginnings of corn flakes. In 1898, W.K. Kellogg (who later became the founder of Kellogg’s) and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, accidently produced a batch of flaked wheat berry after attempting to make granola. The Kellogg brothers then decided to experiment by flaking corn and the rest is history.
back at the beginnings of corn flakes. In 1898, W.K. Kellogg (who later became the founder of Kellogg’s) and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, accidently produced a batch of flaked wheat berry after attempting to make granola. The Kellogg brothers then decided to experiment by flaking corn and the rest is history.
In the early 1800’s, a man by the name of Lord Sandys appointed chemists John Lea and William Perrins to the task of recreating a recipe he had tasted in Bengal. Lea and Perrins attempted the sauce, but did not like the result, so they left the sauce in jars in a cellar. Two years later, the two stumbled across the sauce, decided to taste it and found something amazing: it actually tasted good. Today, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce is aged in a wooden cask for 18 months and is a popular dressing on meats and salads.
became domesticated, possibly around 5,000 B.C. To transport the animal milk, the milk was often placed in sacks made from the stomachs of animals. It’s believed that the bacteria as well as the acidity from the lining of the stomachs prompted the milk to coagulate, forming the beginnings of yogurt.