“Some diseases maim, some kill – diabetes does both”

Leading health and development experts have warned that the global diabetes crisis is driving poverty that will last for generations.

The United Nations Department of Public Information held its 63rd annual meeting of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) in Melbourne during August with the aim of advancing global health initiatives.

President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), Professor Jean Claude Mbanya will tell the meeting that 80 per cent of the current 285 million cases of diabetes in low and middle income countries are increasingly affecting people aged between 35 and 64 years.

“What we are seeing is diabetes having a significant impact on poverty and transgenerational hardship. There’s an insidious relationship between diabetes and key development indicators such as poverty and malnutrition, gender inequity, maternal mortality, and increased infections”, Prof Mbanya said.

A leading international figure at the conference, Sir George Alleyne, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies and former Special Envoy to the UN on HIV/AIDS said, “Some diseases maim, some diseases kill – diabetes does both.”

“In many countries diabetes is responsible for setting up a cycle of poverty. If you are poor you are more likely to get diabetes and if you get diabetes it is more likely to make you poor. It’s a health problem that can trigger a lasting and generational poverty trap,” Sir George said.

Also addressing the meeting will be the co-chair of the IDF Task Force on Epidemiology and Prevention of Diabetes, Prof Paul Zimmet AO, Director Emeritus of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute who led Australia’s landmark diabetes research project AusDiab.

“Our Institute here in Melbourne helps prepare the predictions for the global diabetes picture. I have been saying for some time that diabetes is likely to be the biggest epidemic in human history- it is on the scale of a tsunami. This UNDPI meeting is of critical importance in advancing the development of a global diabetes plan in preparation for the 2011 UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases,” Prof Zimmet said.

Chairing a workshop on diabetes and poverty, IDF Vice President and Director of the University of Sydney’s Health and Sustainability Unit A/Prof Ruth Colagiuri said, “Diabetes is undermining human development, national economic stability and security and causing untold personal and family hardship.

“As urbanisation intensifies globally it is increasingly clear that the causes and the solutions of diabetes and climate change are inextricably linked. The way we eat and get around is not only damaging our health it is damaging the planet.

“If we want life expectancy to continue increasing we need public policies that promote and protect the health of people and the health of the planet”, A/Prof Colagiuri said.

The diabetes workshop of the UNDPI diabetes meeting is co-sponsored by the International Diabetes Federation, the Oxford Health Alliance Asia Pacific Centre, The University of Sydney (Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease and Institute for Sustainable Solutions) and Diabetes Australia.