I’m willing to bet that most people know someone or have someone in their lives that has diabetes. There’s Diabetes Type I and Type II, but I’m focusing on Type II today. It affects so many people and their lives, even those who don’t have it, but have a close relative who does. BBC just came out with this article this morning:
The world is facing an “unrelenting march” of diabetes which now affects nearly one in 11 adults, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
In a major report it warned cases had nearly quadrupled to 422 million in 2014 from 108 million in 1980.
High blood sugar levels are a major killer – linked to 3.7 million deaths around the world each year, it says.
How diabetes has taken its toll
422 million
adults were living with diabetes in 2014 – that’s
314 million
more than there were in 1980
- 8.5% of adults worldwide has diabetes
- 1.5 million people died as a result of diabetes in 2012
- 2.2 million additional deaths were caused by higher-than-optimal blood glucose
- 43% of these 3.7m people died before they were 70 years old