Diabetes has overtaken poverty-related infections to become the leading cause of death in Mexico, according to a new report that adds weight to a World Health Organization warning that a devastating global diabetes epidemic is looming.
Mexico’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday the report, just published, found deaths from diabetes, often linked to obesity, are increasing by 3 percent each year, making diabetes the cause of 12 percent of deaths in the country.
“Diabetes is the best example of the epidemic transition the country is going through, characterized by a growing predominance of noncontagious illnesses,” the report stated, noting associated factors like obesity were also on the rise.
The global death toll from diabetes exceeds the three million killed by AIDS. World health bodies predict the number of diabetes sufferers worldwide could more than double to 366 million by 2030 from around 177 million now.
Normally considered a rich countries’ disease, diabetes is growing fastest in poor countries, often in tandem with obesity — a rising problem in developing countries and especially in junk-food obsessed Mexico.
Mexico is also seeing a swing toward cancer, which is now behind more than 10 percent of deaths.
In total, the percentage of deaths from noninfectious illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and hypertension has risen to 73 percent from 44 percent in 1950. Fewer than 15 percent of deaths in Mexico are now from common infections.
'We must promote healthy habits'
“These figures show the principal causes of death are no longer linked, as in the past, to infections but to the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and addictive substances, inactivity and obesity. We must promote more healthy habits,” President Vicente Fox said in a speech on Monday.
The most common form of diabetes results from the body’s inability to respond to the action of insulin produced by the pancreas, generating symptoms like blurred vision, unusual thirst, frequent urination and tiredness.
Left untreated, the illness can lead in later life to serious complications including heart disease, strokes, kidney disease and blindness.
The World Health Organization is working to raise awareness of diabetes which is sometimes hard to spot and which experts say can be prevented with improved eating and exercise habits.
Mexico’s swing toward the illnesses that blight richer nations has come amid a slide in child mortality rates.
Between 2000 and 2003 the infant mortality rate dropped 15 percent, while for children under five, deaths from respiratory infections and diarrhea fell by 16 percent, thanks to improved sanitary conditions and vaccination programs, the report said.