‘Diabesity’ the new big thing.

We are heading towards an epidemic of diabetes that threatens to bankrupt our healthcare systems

The incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide. In Ireland the latest figures by the Institute of Public Health showed that in 2010 more than 10 per cent of adults aged 55 and over have diabetes. More than 41,000 (2.7 per cent) adults aged 45 years and over have undiagnosed diabetes. Diabetes is also more common among older people.

The cause of this is very clear. We are becoming increasingly obese as a population, and the relationship between obesity and diabetes is well established. In fact, the term “diabesity” has been coined to link the relationship between increasing obesity and associated type 2 diabetes.

Some 90 per cent of the world’s 285 million people with diabetes have type 2 which is directly related to obesity. Richard Schulze of the Schulze Diabetes Institute in the US said “the increasing prevalence of obesity – fuelled by excessive calorie intake, suboptimum dietary quality and sedentary lifestyles – is driving this epidemic”…