It is estimated that more than 371 million people in the world live with diabetes, 90% of them have type 2 diabetes (“Type 2 Diabetes,” 2019). Unfortunately, half of these people are not aware of their diabetic conditions. In the United Kingdom, about 4.9 million people have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It is also estimated that close to 13.6 million people in the UK are at risk of contracting type diabetes (“Type 2 Diabetes,” 2019). These are alarming statistics that prove that type 2 diabetes is a serious health issue in the UK.
The surge in the number of cases of Type 2 diabetes in Britain can be attributed to behavioral influences and biological characteristics of the population. Behavioral influences are mainly concerned with food choices, inadequate sleep, and lack of physical activity. Meanwhile, biological factors are associated with the genetic predispositions for the disease as well as the treatment for other medical conditions. It includes such factors as family history, use of statins or antipsychotics, age, and testosterone deficiency (Kayyali et al., 2019). In the UK, type 2 diabetes is also common among obese people.
Managing type 2 diabetes is a very expensive affair as it involves a lot of expenditure on health care. Given this fact, some health insurance policies do not want to cover diabetic patients. This is a form of open discrimination orchestrated against the members of this population (Kayyali et al., 2019). Indeed, this is an unethical to shun diabetic patients because of the high cost of treatment required them, their actions raise a fundamental ethical issue of discrimination.
Based on the statistics and the present situation of Type 2 diabetes in the UK, I would like to seek more information on the following issues:
- Why is Type 2 diabetes the most dominant one and not type 1?
- Now that Type 2 diabetes has proven to be a global health care problem, can a vaccine be found for it?
- What is the relationship between obesity and type 2 diabetes?
I would like to recommend a radical change in the food choices that we consume. Particularly, processed foods and those produced as a result of using inorganic fertilizers and other chemicals should be completely banned.
References
Type 2 Diabetes. (2019). Web.
Kayyali, R., Slater, N., Sahi, A., Mepani, D., Lalji, K., & Abdallah, A. (2019). Type 2 Diabetes: How informed are the general public? A cross-sectional study investigating disease awareness and barriers to communicating knowledge in high-risk populations in London. BMC Public Health., 19(138).