The warnings about a looming, large and potentially lethal diabetes crisis in the UK have been sounded for years. Tragically, there is no longer any need for warnings.
Diabetes UK’s grim report confirms the worst: 5 million people are now living with diabetes, a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
A frightening combination of government sleepwalking, junk food diets, soaring inactivity levels and expanding waistlines have plunged the UK into a public health emergency. Unlike Covid-19, this one could have been avoided.
A small proportion of cases, about 8%, are type 1: where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells that produce insulin. There is no way to avoid this type – and no lifestyle changes you can make to lower your risk.
But about nine in 10 cases are type 2, which, by contrast, is often preventable.
While Covid – the infectious disease that has preoccupied nations and populations since 2020 – burst into the world abruptly, the threat of diabetes has loomed for decades. That makes the Diabetes UK report hard to swallow.
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin – a hormone that regulates blood glucose – or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces.
Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time can wreak havoc on many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.
The effects can be devastating. Every week in the UK, diabetes leads to 184 amputations, more than 770 strokes, 590 heart attacks and 2,300 cases of heart failure.
Rising obesity levels have propelled the UK’s diabetes crisis. But even as diagnoses have doubled in the last 15 years, ministers have failed to take meaningful action.
While some public health leaders privately felt the government’s 2020 anti-obesity strategy had come a decade too late, there was widespread support for its ambitions.
However, since then, much of it has been delayed, shelved or chopped. Public health spending has been ruthlessly slashed.
Even the long-promised ban on pre-watershed TV advertising for junk food has been pushed down the road. Rishi Sunak disclosed in December that the measure will not come into force until 2025.
The diabetes crisis in the UK is also a symptom of the country’s health inequalities, another issue on which, just like obesity, ministers have overpromised on action and underdelivered on policy.
Diabetes is more prevalent in areas with higher levels of deprivation. NHS integrated care systems should put the disease at the heart of their action plans to reduce health inequalities, targeting communities where diabetes prevalence is high.
Everyone should be aware of the signs and symptoms. They include needing to urinate a lot, being thirsty, fatigue and losing weight without trying.
There is also action individuals can take to reduce their risk of type 2, such as eating healthily, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy body weight.
Type 2 can get worse over time and people often need medicine, usually in the form of tablets or injections.
But there is growing evidence to suggest that some people can put their type 2 diabetes into remission by losing weight, where their blood sugar is reduced below the diabetes range.
Some people are able to do this through a low-calorie diet, but this is not suitable for everyone, so it’s important to get medical advice first.
