When we talk about diabetes, we refer to a chronic disease whose sufferers have problems either with the production or with the regulation of insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. This may be because the pancreas is not making enough, or because the body is not using available insulin effectively.
According to the latest data provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that the number of people with diabetes increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. Furthermore, the prevalence of diabetes has increased more in the countries with medium and low income.
Diabetes, in addition to causing millions of deaths a year, can also cause other health problems: blindness, heart attack, kidney failure or stroke.
Although there is a genetic component, it is known that healthy habits related to diet or exercise can prevent type 2 diabetes or delay its onset . Obesity, for example, is a major risk factor for this disease.
“Every time we eat worse and we do very little exercise, life habits that must be changed from schools, but also from homes,” explained Sonia Gaztambide, president of the Spanish Diabetes Society, at a press conference on the occasion of of the celebration of World Diabetes Day 2019, which this year bears the motto “Protect your family”.
“It is a very successful motto because it is in the family that we talk about everyday things and diabetes . That is why we ask that education be one of the fundamental pillars to control and manage diabetes correctly ”, explained Andoni Lorenzo, president of the Spanish Diabetes Federation.
Both entities believe that much more information and prevention is necessary in everything related to diabetes, in this way it will be much easier to prevent and also adequately treat newly diagnosed cases.
In this gallery we are going to focus on type 2 diabetes, which is also called non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset, and which is due to a problem in the use of insulin produced by the pancreas.
