More lethal than AIDS/HIV and malaria combined?

We got quite a Happy World Diabetes Day shock today! The International Diabetes Federation says the disease will cause 3.8 million deaths worldwide this year, nearly equal to HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. In the USA, the CDC says, it is the sixth leading cause of death.

The World Health Organization warned that diabetes is a "global epidemic" affecting over two hundred forty-six million people worldwide. "The prevalence of diabetes is going up because obesity is going up," says Judith Fradkin, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Adult onset diabetes, type 2 diabetes, accounts for 90% of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is associated with obesity and inactivity. Adult onset diabetes used to just affect adults, hence the name, but now because of the obesity epidemic there is an emerging diabetes epidemic among children. Because of seriousness of this problem, this year's "World Diabetes Day" focus is on children and adolescence.

One of the organizers of "World Diabetes Day," Doctor Francine Kaufman, traveled around the world for a film called "Diabetes: A Global Epidemic" scheduled to be aired on The Discovery Health Channel. Doctor Kaufman says the message of "World Diabetes Day" is that the disease is manageable and, in the case of type two diabetes, preventable!

And what did Dr. Kaufman and the World Health Organization offer as a way to prevent type 2 diabetes? Changes to diet and lifestyle (which includes exercise, stress and weight management).

What does all this mean? 90% of all diabetes is type 2. Type 2 diabetes is preventable with diet and lifestyle changes. Therefore, 90% of all diabetes is preventable. So let's do the math. 90% of the 246 million people that have diabetes, 222 million do not have to be sick.

You can start to chip away at that staggering and needless number, one person at a time. The National Institute of Health web site says that for healthy diabetic eating: limit sweets, eat lots of whole-grain foods, fruits and vegetables, eat less fat and limit alcohol.

Non-diabetics can learn from that too. And don't buy into that myth about fruits and vegetables having too much sugar. Plant foods are easily digested so they go into your system quickly, but they have a low glycemic load (except potato). Glycemic load is a good reflection of the impact a food has on blood sugar because it considers both the rate of increase and the amount of sugar per food volume. Fruit and vegetables have lots of fiber as part of their carbohydrate composition.

We think plant carbs are even better than whole grain carbs for overall health. We'd also encourage cutting back on any processed foods - they all have sugar - and shift your portion size at meals from the meats and breads to more fruits and vegetables. Raw vegetables are best, so think about having salads as part of meals or an appetizer for most meals.

Bottom line. Don't choose to be part of the epidemic.