Tanya Habjouqa / Panos Pictures
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Young teen suffers from diabetes. She gets visits for health education from health teams in camp. It is hard to keep the insulin cool in the summer with limited electricity. She excises to stay healthy, jumping rope is her favorite.
The World Health Organization came out with a sobering statistic this week: The global population with diabetes has doubled since 1980.
About 8.5 percent of the adult population worldwide now suffers from diabetes. That’s more than 400 million people. Believe it or not, diabetes was once the disease of affluent countries. But now, it’s spreading faster in low- and middle-income countries, which have seen the biggest spikes in recent years.
“If we are to make any headway in halting the rise in diabetes, we need to rethink our daily lives: to eat healthily, be physically active and avoid excessive weight gain,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a release. “Even in the poorest settings, governments must ensure that people are able to make these healthy choices and that health systems are able to diagnose and treat people with diabetes.”
As we’ve detailed here before, the battle against diabetes can start with a first step.
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