The importance of working towards control.

The importance of working towards control.

Keeping with the advice of the health care professionals who look after us is not always easy. Following diets and exercise programmes, checking of blood sugar levels, attending appointments can be tough.

I often wonder how difficult it must be for parents whose children have diabetes. It’s tough enough bringing up children but to add the necessity to keep track of your child’s blood sugar levels and to administer insulin injections must at times become very challenging.

For these parents there is little choice, they must follow the advice and work towards control of their children’s blood sugar levels.

For the rest of us we are faced with many choices and temptations. Nicely packaged and advertised processed foods, candy, chocolates, sugar laden fizzy drinks, reasons not to do that exercise, I’ll leave it to tomorrow syndrome to name a few.

Unfortunately, diabetes that's not properly managed can cause many serious health problems. It's wise to take precautions against associated illnesses as soon as possible.

Excess glucose in the blood damages the blood vessels and nerves, contributing to:

• heart disease
• strokes
• kidney disease (nephropathy)
• impotence
• peripheral vascular disease (PVD)
• nerve damage (neuropathy)
• damage to the back of the eye (retinopathy)

Uncontrolled diabetes is the commonest cause of blindness in people of working age, although treatment can prevent blindness in 90 per cent of those at risk.

Diabetes is the second most common cause of lower limb amputation, trauma being responsible for most leg amputations.

However, it's possible to minimize the risk of developing these complications by working towards keeping diabetes under tight control. What has passed is in the past and the important message this morning is that we all continue with the advice of our health care professional and work towards keeping our diabetes under control. Much like the parents of children with diabetes have to do on a daily basis.

 

Tax on unhealthy food - A tax to save your life!

Sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.

                    — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

BREAKING NEWS: Quoted from the New England Journal of Medicine  April 8, 2009, on-line edition.  Will appear in print edition of the NEJM on April 30, 2009.

The obesity epidemic has inspired calls for public health measures to prevent diet-related diseases. One controversial idea is now the subject of public debate: food taxes.

Forty states already have small taxes on sugared beverages and snack foods, but in the past year, Maine and New York have proposed large taxes on sugared beverages.  Because excess consumption of unhealthful foods underlies many leading causes of death,  food taxes at local, state, and national levels are likely to remain part of political and public health discourse.

Sugar-sweetened beverages (soda sweetened with sugar, corn syrup, or other caloric sweeteners and other carbonated and uncarbonated drinks, such as sports and energy drinks) may be the single largest driver of the obesity epidemic. A recent analysis found that the intake of sugared beverages is associated with increased body weight, poor nutrition, and displacement of more healthful beverages; increasing consumption increases risk for obesity and diabetes; Studies show that reduced intake of soft drinks improves health. Studies that do not support a relationship between consumption of sugared beverages and health outcomes tend to be conducted by authors supported by the beverage industry.

Sugared beverages are marketed extensively to children and adolescents, and in the mid-1990s, children's intake of sugared beverages surpassed that of milk. In the past decade, per capita intake of calories from sugar-sweetened beverages has increased by nearly 30%;  beverages now account for 10 to 15% of the calories consumed by children and adolescents. For each extra can or glass of sugared beverage consumed per day, the likelihood of a child's becoming obese increases by 60%.

Taxes on tobacco products have been highly effective in reducing consumption, and data indicate that higher prices also reduce soda consumption. A review conducted by Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity suggested that for every 10% increase in price, consumption decreases by 7.8%. An industry trade publication reported even larger reductions: as prices of carbonated soft drinks increased by 6.8%, sales dropped by 7.8%, and as Coca-Cola prices increased by 12%, sales dropped by 14.6%.5 Such studies — and the economic principles that support their findings — suggest that a tax on sugared beverages would encourage consumers to switch to more healthful beverages, which would lead to reduced caloric intake and less weight gain.

An estimated $79 billion is spent annually for overweight and obesity alone — half  at taxpayers' expense. In the case of sugared beverages, marketers commonly make health claims  about energy and vitamins to young children who often cannot distinguish a television program from an advertisement. A penny-per-ounce excise tax would raise an estimated $1.2 billion in New York State alone, which could be used to promote better health.

Americans consume about 250 to 300 more calories daily today than they did several decades ago, and nearly half this increase is accounted for by consumption of sugared beverages.

Such a reduction in calorie consumption would be expected to substantially reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes and may also reduce the risk of heart disease and other conditions.

UK diabetes audit, icebergs and cuckoo clocks

UK Diabetes audit is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

A stroll down the shopping malls of Manchester city centre confirms the time bomb of health problems that, like the German cuckoo clock, tick tocks away with such a sense of certainty that at some point, like the cuckoo clock, will explode horribly on all of us.

 

The survey of more than 23000 children explains that 97% of childhood incidences of diabetes in the UK are of type 1. More worryingly 3% of the incidences are now of Type II diabetes which has been associated almost exclusively with age onset and obesity. Age onset and obesity traditionally meant the over 50’s who had given up the battle of middle age spread.

 

When we toss into the melting pot to the fact that the  UK has one of the poorest reported proportion of these children exercising good control and balance over their diabetes any one with any interest in healthcare, children’s welfare, economics (chronic disease in expensive for the state and its taxpayers)  should be sleeping less well in their beds tonight.

 

How can you help yourself?

 

As a starter for 10 here are some pointers.

 

1)      Understand the daily challenges of patients and their families who live with diabetes.

2)       Diabetes is not concerned about political correctness. Afro Caribbean, Asian and socially deprived communities face greater risk of developing the disease. However look for the log in your own eye before you make judgment about other people and their lifestyles. In this consumer world where even opening a tin of beans has been mechanised diabetes lurks in places where physical activity has stopped.

3)      Support Diabetes Uk and other diabetes related charities whilst supporting your own body with a little more exercise.

4)      Learn about some of the long term complications associated with diabetes. Type II is a serious disease with the possibility of horrible long term complications.

5)      Take an interest in your diet. Do you know what the effect of transfats and empty calories are having on your body?

6)      Lobby like hell the supermarket chains. Enough of processed food it’s killing us and our wallets.

7)      Learn to cook and teach your children to cook.