Holistic Health South Africa!

The Diabetes Industry

Today's diabetes industry is a massive community that has grown step by step from its dubious origins in the early 20th century. In the last 80 years it has become enormously successful at shutting out competitive voices that attempt to point out the fraud involved in modern diabetes treatment. In the large majority of cases, medicine has never cured a single case of diabetes. The financial and political influence of the pharmaceutical companies has almost totally subverted the original intent of healing. They routinely approve death-dealing, ineffective drugs with insufficient testing. Former commissioner of the FDA, Dr Herbert Ley, in testimony before a US Senate hearing, commented: "People think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it's doing are as different as night and day." The financial and political influence of the pharmaceutical industry completely controls virtually every diabetes publication in the US. Many diabetes publications are subsidised by ads for diabetes supplies. No diabetes editor is going to allow the truth to be printed in his magazine. This is why the diabetic only pays about one-quarter to one-third of the cost of printing the magazine he depends upon for accurate information. The rest is subsidised by diabetes manufacturers with a vested commercial interest in preventing diabetics from curing their diabetes. When looking for a magazine that tells the truth about diabetes, look first to see if it is full of ads for diabetes supplies.

And then there are the various associations that solicit annual donations to find a cure for their proprietary disease. Every year they promise that a cure is just around the corner—just send more money! Some of these very same associations have been clearly implicated in providing advice that promotes the progress of diabetes in their trusting supporters. For example, for years they heavily promoted exchange diets, which are in fact scientifically worthless—as anyone who has ever tried to use them quickly finds out. They ridiculed the use of glycaemic tables, which are actually very helpful to the diabetic. They promoted the use of margarine as heart healthy, long after it was well understood that margarine causes diabetes and promotes heart failure. If people ever wake up to the cure for diabetes that has been suppressed for 40 years, these associations will soon be out of business.

For 40 years, medical research has consistently shown with increasing clarity that diabetes is a degenerative disease directly caused by an engineered food supply that is focused on profit instead of health. Although the diligent can readily glean this information from a wealth of medical research literature, it is generally otherwise unavailable. Prominent among the causative agents in our modern diabetes epidemic are the engineered fats and oils that are sold in today's supermarkets.

Ø      The first step to curing diabetes is to stop believing the lie that the disease is incurable.

Diabetes History

In 1922, three Canadian Nobel Prize winners, Banting, Best and Macleod, were successful in saving the life of a fourteen-year-old diabetic girl in Toronto General Hospital with injectable insulin. Eli Lilly was licensed to manufacture this new wonder drug, and the medical community basked in the glory of a job well done. It wasn't until 1933 that rumours about a new rogue form of diabetes surfaced. This was in a paper presented by Joslyn, Dublin and Marks and printed in the American Journal of Medical Sciences. This paper, "Studies on Diabetes Mellitus", discussed the emergence of a major epidemic of a disease which looked very much like the diabetes of the early 1920s, only it did not respond to the wonder drug, insulin. Even worse, sometimes insulin treatment killed the patient. This new disease became known as "insulin-resistant diabetes" because it had the elevated blood sugar symptom of diabetes but responded poorly to insulin therapy. Many physicians had considerable success in treating this disease through diet. A great deal was learned about the relationship between diet and diabetes in the 1930s and 1940s.

Diabetes, which had a per-capita incidence of 0.0028% at the turn of the 19^th century, had by 1933 zoomed 1,000% in the United States to become a disease seen by many doctors. This disease, under a variety of aliases, was destined to go on to wreck the health of over half the American population and incapacitate almost 20% by the 1990s. In 1950, the medical community became able to perform serum insulin assays. These assays quickly revealed that this new disease wasn't classic diabetes; it was characterized by sufficient, often excessive, blood insulin levels. The problem was that the insulin was ineffective; it did not reduce blood sugar. But since the disease had been known as diabetes for almost 20 years, it was renamed Type II diabetes. This was to distinguish it from the earlier Type I diabetes, caused by insufficient insulin production by the pancreas. Had the dietary insights of the previous 20 years dominated the medical scene from this point and into the late 1960s, diabetes would have become widely recognized as curable instead of merely treatable. Instead, in 1950, a search was launched for another wonder drug to deal with the Type II diabetes problem.

Cure versus Treatment

This new, ideal, wonder drug would be effective, like insulin, in remitting obvious adverse symptoms of the disease but not effective in curing the underlying disease. Thus it would be needed continually for the remaining life of the patient. It would have to be patentable; that is, it could not be a natural medication because these are non-patentable. Like insulin, it would have to be highly profitable to manufacture and distribute. Mandatory government approvals would be required to stimulate physicians to prescribe it as a prescription drug. Testing required for these approvals would have to be enormously expensive to prevent other, unapproved, medications from becoming competitive.

Ø      This, my friends, is the origin of the classic medical protocol of "treating the symptoms". By doing this, both the drug company and the medical community could prosper in business, and the patient, while not being cured of his disease, was sometimes temporarily relieved of some of his symptoms. Additionally, natural medications that actually cured disease would have to be suppressed. The more effective they were, the more they would need to be suppressed and their proponents jailed as quacks. After all, it wouldn't do to have some cheap, effective, natural medication cure disease in a capital-intensive monopoly market specifically designed to treat symptoms without curing disease.

v     O.K., let’s take a deep breath and ask, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

Often the natural substance really did cure disease. This is why the force of law has been and is being used to drive the natural, often superior, medicines from the marketplace, to remove the "cure" word from the medical vocabulary and to undermine totally the very concept of a free marketplace in the medical business. Now it is clear why the "cure" word is so vigorously suppressed by law. The FDA has extensive Orwellian regulations that prohibit the use of the "cure" word to describe any competing medicine or natural substance. It is precisely because many natural substances do actually both cure and prevent disease that this word has become so frightening to the drug and orthodox medical community.

The Commercial Value of Symptoms

After the drug development policy was redesigned to focus on ameliorating symptoms rather than curing disease, it became necessary to reinvent the way drugs were marketed. This was done in 1949 in the midst of a major epidemic of insulin-resistant diabetes. So, in 1949, the US medical community reclassified the symptoms of diabetes along with many other disease symptoms into diseases in their own right. With this reclassification as the new basis for diagnosis, competing medical speciality groups quickly seized upon related groups of symptoms as their own proprietary symptoms set. Thus the heart specialist, endocrinologist, allergist, kidney specialist and many others started to treat the symptoms for which they felt responsible. As the underlying cause of the disease was widely ignored, all focus on actually curing anything was completely lost.

Ø      What are we talking about? An example will help to clarify:

Heart failure, for example, which had previously been understood often to be but a symptom of diabetes, now became a disease not directly connected to diabetes. It became fashionable to think that diabetes "increased cardiovascular risk". The causal role of a failed blood-sugar control system in heart failure became obscured. Consistent with the new medical paradigm, none of the treatments offered for chronic heart conditions actually cure. For example, the three-year survival rate for bypass surgery is almost exactly the same as if no surgery was undertaken. Today, over half of the people in America suffer from one or more symptoms of this disease. In its beginnings, it became well known to physicians as Type II diabetes, insulin-resistant diabetes, insulin resistance, adult-onset diabetes or, more rarely, hyperinsulinaemia. According to the American Heart Association, almost 50% of Americans suffer from one or more symptoms of this disease. One third of the US population is morbidly obese; half of the population is overweight. Type II diabetes, also called adult-onset diabetes, now appears routinely in six-year-old children.

Many degenerative diseases can be traced to a massive failure of the endocrine system. This was well known to the physicians of the 1930s as insulin-resistant diabetes. This basic underlying disorder is known to be a derangement of the blood-sugar control system by badly engineered fats and oils. It is exacerbated and complicated by the widespread lack of other essential nutrition that the body needs to cope with the metabolic consequences of these poisons. All fats and oils are not equal. Some are healthy and beneficial; many, commonly available in the supermarket, are poisonous. The health distinction is not between saturated and unsaturated, as the fats and oils industry would have us believe. Many saturated oils and fats are highly beneficial; many unsaturated oils are highly poisonous. The important health distinction is between natural and engineered. There exists great dishonesty in advertising in the fats and oils industry. It is aimed at creating a market for cheap junk oils such as soy, cottonseed and rapeseed oils. With an informed and aware public, these oils would have no market at all, and the world—would have far fewer cases of diabetes.

Epidemiological Lifestyle Link

As early as 1901, efforts had been made to manufacture and sell food products by the use of automated factory machinery because of the immense profits that were possible. Most of the early efforts failed because people were inherently suspicious of food that wasn't farm fresh and because the technology was poor. As long as people were prosperous, suspicious food products made little headway. Crisco, the artificial shortening, was once given away free in 21�� lb cans in an unsuccessful effort to influence American housewives to trust and buy the product in preference to lard. Margarine was introduced and was bitterly opposed by the dairy states in the USA. With the advent of the Depression of the 1930s, margarine, Crisco and a host of other refined and hydrogenated products began to make significant penetration into the food markets of America. Support for dairy opposition to margarine faded during World War II because there wasn't enough butter for the needs of both the civilian population and the military. At this point, the dairy industry, having lost much support, simply accepted a diluted market share and concentrated on supplying the military.

Flax oils and fish oils, which were common in the stores and considered dietary staples before the population became diseased, have disappeared from the shelves. The last supplier of flax oil to the major distribution chains in the US was Archer Daniels Midland, and it stopped producing and supplying the product in 1950. More recently, one of the most important of the remaining, genuinely beneficial, fats was subjected to a massive media disinformation campaign that portrayed it as a saturated fat that causes heart failure. As a result, it has virtually disappeared from the supermarket shelves. Thus was coconut oil removed from the food chain and replaced with soy oil, cottonseed oil and rapeseed oil. People of 2 generations ago, would never have swapped a fine, healthy oil like coconut oil for these cheap, junk oils. It was shortly after this successful media blitz that the US populace lost its war on fat. For many years, coconut oil had been their most effective dietary weight-control agent. The history of the engineered adulteration of our once-clean food supply exactly parallels the rise of the epidemic of diabetes and hyperinsulinaemia now sweeping the United States as well as much of the rest of the world.

Ø      The second step to a cure for this disease epidemic is to stop believing the lie that our food supply is safe and nutritious.

Let’s now look at The Nature of the Disease called Diabetes!

Diabetes is classically diagnosed as a failure of the body to metabolize carbohydrates properly. Its defining symptom is a high blood-glucose level. Type I diabetes results from insufficient insulin production by the pancreas. Type II diabetes results from ineffective insulin. In both types, the blood-glucose level remains elevated. Neither insufficient insulin nor ineffective insulin can limit post-prandial (after-eating) blood sugar to the normal range. In established cases of Type II diabetes, these elevated blood sugar levels are often preceded and accompanied by chronically elevated insulin levels and by serious distortions of other endocrine hormonal markers. The ineffective insulin is no different from effective insulin. Its ineffectiveness lies in the failure of the cell population to respond to it. It is not the result of any biochemical defect in the insulin itself. Therefore, it is appropriate to note that this is a disease that affects almost every cell in the 1 Quadrillion or so cells of our body. All of our cells are dependent upon the food that we eat for the raw materials they need for self repair and maintenance.

The classification of diabetes as a failure to metabolise carbohydrates is a traditional classification that originated in the early 19th century when little was known about metabolic diseases or processes. Today, with our increased knowledge of these processes, it would appear quite appropriate to define Type II diabetes more fundamentally as a failure of the body to metabolise fats and oils properly. This failure results in a loss of effectiveness of insulin and in the consequent failure to metabolise carbohydrates. Unfortunately, much medical insight into this matter, except at the research level, remains hampered by its 19th-century legacy. Thus Type II diabetes and its early hyperinsulinaemic symptoms are whole-body symptoms of this basic cellular failure to metabolise glucose properly. Each cell of our body, for reasons which are becoming clearer, finds itself unable to transport glucose from the bloodstream to its interior. The glucose then remains in the bloodstream, or is stored as body fat or as glycogen, or is otherwise disposed of in urine. It appears that when insulin binds to a cell membrane receptor, it initiates a complex cascade of biochemical reactions inside the cell. This causes a class of glucose transporters known as GLUT4 molecules to leave their parking area inside the cell and travel to the inside surface of the plasma cell membrane. When in the membrane, they migrate to special areas of the membrane called caveolae areas. There, by another series of biochemical reactions, they identify and hook up with glucose molecules and transport them into the interior of the cell by a process called endocytosis. Within the cell's interior, this glucose is then burned as fuel by the mitochondria to produce energy to power cellular activity. Thus these GLUT4 transporters lower glucose in the bloodstream by transporting it out of the bloodstream into all the cells of the body. Many of the molecules involved in these glucose- and insulin-mediated pathways are lipids; that is, they are fatty acids. A healthy plasma cell membrane, now known to be an active player in the glucose scenario, contains a complement of cis-type w=3 unsaturated fatty acids. This makes the membrane relatively fluid and slippery. When these cis- fatty acids are chronically unavailable because of our diet, trans- fatty acids and short- and medium-chain saturated fatty acids are substituted in the cell membrane. These substitutions make the cellular membrane stiffer and more sticky, and inhibit the glucose transport mechanism. Thus, in the absence of sufficient cis omega 3 fatty acids in our diet, these fatty acid substitutions take place, the mobility of the GLUT4 transporters is diminished, the interior biochemistry of the cell is changed and glucose remains elevated in the bloodstream.

Elsewhere in the body, the pancreas secretes excess insulin, the liver manufactures fat from the excess sugar, the adipose cells store excess fat, the body goes into a high urinary mode, insufficient cellular energy is available for bodily activity and the entire endocrine system becomes distorted. Eventually, pancreatic failure occurs, body weight plummets and a diabetic crisis is precipitated. Although there remains much work to be done to elucidate fully all of the steps in all of these pathways, this clearly marks the beginning of a biochemical explanation for the known epidemiological relationship between cheap, engineered dietary fats and oils and the onset of Type II diabetes.

Orthodox Medical Treatment

After the diagnosis of diabetes, modern orthodox medical treatment consists of either oral hypoglycaemic agents or insulin.

• Oral hypoglycaemic agents

In 1955, oral hypoglycaemic drugs were introduced. Currently available oral hypoglycaemic agents fall into five classifications according to their biophysical mode of action. These classes are: biguanides; glucosidase inhibitors; meglitinides; sulphonylureas; and thiazolidinediones. The sulphonylureas are another pancreatic stimulant class designed to stimulate the production of insulin. Serum insulin determinations are rarely made by the doctor before he prescribes these drugs. They are often prescribed for Type II diabetics, many of whom already have elevated ineffective insulin. These drugs are notorious for causing hypoglycaemia as a side effect.

The thiazolidinediones are famous for causing liver cancer. One of them, Rezulin, was approved in the USA through devious political infighting, but failed to get approval in the UK because it was known to cause liver cancer. The doctor who had responsibility to approve it at the FDA refused to do so. It was only after he was replaced by a more compliant official that Rezulin gained approval by the FDA. It went on to kill well over 100 diabetes patients and cripple many others before the fight to get it off the market was finally won. Rezulin was designed to stimulate the uptake of glucose from the bloodstream by the peripheral cells and to inhibit the normal secretion of glucose by the liver. The politics of why this drug ever came onto market, and then remained in the market for such an unexplainable length of time with regulatory agency approval, is not clear. As of April 2000, lawsuits commenced in the US to clarify this situation.

• Insulin

Today, insulin is prescribed for both the Type I and Type II diabetics. Injectable insulin substitutes for the insulin that the body no longer produces. Of course, this treatment, while necessary for preserving the life of the Type I diabetic, is highly questionable when applied to the Type II diabetic. It is important to note that neither insulin nor any of these oral hypoglycaemic agents exerts any curative action whatsoever on any type of diabetes. None of these medical strategies is designed to normalise the cellular uptake of glucose by the cells that need it to power their activity. The prognosis with this orthodox treatment is increasing disability and early death from heart or kidney failure or the failure of some other vital organ.

Alternative Medical Treatment

Ø      The third step to a cure for diabetes is to become informed and to apply an alternative methodology that is soundly based upon good science.

Effective alternative treatment that directly leads to a cure is available today for some Type I and for most Type II diabetics. About 5% of the diabetic population suffers from Type I diabetes; about 95% has Type II diabetes. Gestational diabetes is simply ordinary diabetes contracted by a woman who is pregnant. For the Type I diabetic, an alternative methodology for the treatment of Type I diabetes is now available. It was developed in modern hospitals in Madras, India, and subjected to rigorous double-blind studies to prove its efficacy. It operates to restore normal pancreatic beta cell function so that the pancreas can again produce insulin as it should. This approach apparently was capable of curing Type I diabetes in over 60% of the patients on whom it was tested. The major complication lies in whether the antigens that originally led to the autoimmune destruction of these beta cells have disappeared from or remain in the body. If they remain, a cure is less likely; if they have disappeared, the cure is more likely. For reasons already discussed, this methodology is not likely to appear in the Western World any time soon, and certainly not in the American orthodox medical community.

Reversing diabetes is not only possible, it is likely if you are willing to put forth the effort. The good news is that although this disease accounts for almost half of the annual death toll in the  western nations from all causes, it is, in most cases, curable, permanently, quickly, economically, completely and often easily and by natural means. This means little or no reliance upon synthetic designer drugs and no ineffective medical treatments for symptoms, while causal agents remain untreated. Keep in mind that the underlying cause of diabetes is a severe imbalance of the endocrine system that destroys our ability to metabolize food. The imbalance results in elevated levels of certain control hormones as the body strives to correct a systemic problem that it cannot correct with the known toxins in the food supply and without the missing essential elements of nutrition.

Ø      The goal of any effective alternative program is to repair and restore the body's own blood-sugar control mechanism. It is the malfunctioning of this mechanism that, over time, directly causes all of the many debilitating symptoms that make orthodox treatment so financially rewarding for the diabetes industry. For Type II diabetes, the steps in the program are:

1. A personalized natural medicine programme that will repair the damaged cells throughout our body. Diabetics are chronically short of minerals; they need to add a good-quality, broad-spectrum mineral supplement to the diet.

2. Permanently remove from the diet all cheap, toxic, junk fats and oils as well as the processed and restaurant foods that contain them. Continue the natural medicine program until normal insulin values are also restored after blood sugar levels begin to stabilise in the normal region. Once blood sugar levels fall into the normal range, the pancreas will gradually stop overproducing insulin. This process will typically take a little longer and can be tested by having your physician send a sample of your blood to a lab for a serum insulin determination. A good idea is to wait a couple of months after blood sugar control is restored and then have your physician check your insulin level. It's nice to have blood sugar in the normal range; it's even nicer to have this accomplished without excess insulin in the bloodstream.

3. Separately repair the collateral damage done by the disease. Vascular problems caused by a chronically elevated glucose level will normally reverse themselves without conscious effort. The effects of retinopathy and of peripheral neuropathy, for example, will usually self repair. However, when the fine capillaries in the basement membranes of the kidneys begin to leak due to chronic high blood glucose, the kidneys compensate by laying down scar tissue to prevent the leakage. This scar tissue remains even after the diabetes is cured, and is the reason why the kidney damage is not believed to self repair. The arterial and vascular damage done by years of elevated sugar and insulin and by the proliferation of systemic candida will slowly reverse after being on the nutrients for a couple of years.

Recovery Time

The prognosis is usually swift recovery from the disease and restoration of normal health and energy levels in 6 months to a year or more. The length of time that it takes to effect a cure depends upon how long the disease was allowed to develop. For those who work quickly to reverse the disease after early discovery, the time is usually a few months or less. For those who have had the disease for many years, this recovery time may lengthen to a year or more. Thus, there is good reason to get busy reversing this disease as soon as it becomes clearly identified, now that you have become aware of a natural medicine way that has demonstrated great potential to actually cure this disease.

What are the possible side effects of insulin aspart?

 •  Some people have allergic reactions to insulin. Seek emergency medical attention if you experience an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of your throat; swelling of your lips, tongue, or face; or hives).

 •  The side effects of insulin therapy result mostly from blood sugar levels that are either too high or too low. You should be familiar with the symptoms of both high and low blood sugar levels and know how to treat both conditions. Also, be sure your family and close friends know how to help you in an emergency.

 •  Low blood sugar may occur when too much insulin is used; when meals are missed or delayed; if you exercise more than usual; during illness, especially with vomiting or diarrhea; if you take other medications; after drinking alcohol; and in other situations.

 •  Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, has the following symptoms: shaking, headache, cold sweats, pale, cool skin, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating.

 •  Keep sugary candy; fruit juice; or glucose tablets on hand to treat episodes of low blood sugar.

 •  Increased blood sugar may occur if not enough insulin is used, if you eat significantly more food then usual, if you exercise less than usual, if you take other medications, if you have a fever or other illness, and in other situations.

 •  Hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, has the following symptoms: increased thirst, increased hunger, and increased urination.

  •  Side effects may also occur at the site of injection

 •  Side effects other than those listed here may also occur.

Who & how one gets Diabetes?

Those who are accustomed to being administered hormone and  other steroidal drugs are vulnerable to Diabetes.  Those who have swollen pancreas; in whose body the production of insulin ceases. Shortage of or defective, imperfect insulin produced by the body.  Hereditary, either parent suffering from Diabetes.  When and if insulin produced by the body is not assimilated in the blood circulation.  Unequal balance of insulin and glucose; excessive waste of insulin. Quantum of glucose in the body overweighing that of insulin.

Stress, fear & tension. Wrong signals from the brain to the pancreas produces insufficient insulin.  Use of drugs containing Fortison.  Mental fatigue;  Melancholy and despair;  Insomnia; Damage to skull and spine can cause diabetes; Those who consume alcoholic drinks are at risk;  Addiction to candy/sweets;  Susceptibility during last stage of pregnancy and during lactation.

Diabetes may lead to:

Kidney, nerve-damage, and heart disease

 Male impotence

 Effects lead to coma (diabetic coma affects one who neglects regular

    injection of insulin treatment)

 Over-dosage of Insulin leads to hypoglycemic coma, i.e. insulin shock)

 Cardiac Arrest

 Coronary thrombosis

 Cerebral Thrombosis

 Insanity

 Paralysis

 Haemorrhage

 Gangrene

 Failure of kidney (incl. increased blood pressure on kidney)

 Diabetic Neuritis

 Spells and spasms of trembling in body

Ø      WARNING:  DO NOT STOP ANY TREATMENT OR MEDICATION YOU CURRENTLY USE.  CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE STARTING THE USE OF SUPPLEMENTS.

Ø      For both Type I  and Type II diabetes, you need to consult a professional and be under his/her care, NEVER, EVER TRY TO TREAT YOURSELF! I REPEAT, NEVER, EVER TRY TO TREAT YOURSELF!

Worldwide Diabetes Statistics.

Did You Know?

1. According to the IDF[International Diabetes Federation] Diabetes Atlas 2nd edition, in 2003 the five countries with the largest numbers of persons with diabetes were India (35.5 million), China (23.8 million), the United States (16 million), Russia (9.7 million) and Japan (6.7 million).
2. In 2003, the five countries with the highest diabetes prevalence in the adult population were Nauru (30.2 %), The United Arab Emirates (20.1 %), Qatar (16%), Bahrain(14.9%), and Kuwait (12.8%).
3. At least 50% of all people with diabetes are unaware of their condition.  In some countries this figure may rise to 80%.
4. Diabetes is the fourth main cause of death in most developed countries.
5. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and visual impairment in adults in developed countries.
6. Diabetes is the most common cause of amputation which is not the result of an accident.
7. People with diabetes are 15 to 40 times more likely to require a lower-limb amputation compared to the general population.
8. People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people without diabetes. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in industrialized countries.  It is also set to overtake infectious diseases as the most common cause of death in many parts of the less developed world.
9. People with type 2 diabetes have the same risk of heart attack as people without diabetes who have already had a heart attack.
10. People with diabetes can have a heart attack without even realising it.
11. Strokes occur twice as often in people with diabetes and high blood pressure as in those with high blood pressure alone.
12. For each risk factor present, the risk of cardiovascular death is about three times greater in people with diabetes as compared to people without the condition.
13. While cardiovascular disease mortality and in particular coronary heart disease related deaths have declined in those without diabetes in developed countries, in men with diabetes the decrease has been a modest 13% while in women with diabetes the rates have actually increased by 23%.
14. By 2025, the number of people with diabetes is expected to more than double in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, and South-East Asia, and rise by 20% in Europe, 50% in North America, 85% in South and Central America and 75% in the Western Pacific.
15. For developing countries, there will be a projected increase of a 170% of cases; for developed countries, there will be a projected rise of 42%.
16. The populations of most countries are ageing. Diabetes is particularly common in ageing populations and is increasing in proportion to the number of people living longer.
17. The devastating complications of diabetes, such as blindness, kidney failure and heart disease, are imposing a huge burden on healthcare services.  It is estimated that diabetes accounts for between 5% and 10% of a nation's health budget.
18. The human and economic costs of diabetes could be significantly reduced by investing in prevention, particularly early detection, in order to avoid the onset of diabetic complications.
19. More than 300 million people or 8% of the adult population are currently at risk of developing diabetes according to a recent report published in the Diabetes Atlas, released by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF).