Bad Blood

NO LONGER CONFINED TO THE AGED OR MARKEDLY OVERWEIGHT, RATES OF TYPE 2 DIABETES ARE RISING FAST, WITH 6% OF THE COUNTRY NOW AFFECTED. AND WITH MANY CASES GOING UNDIAGNOSED, YOU COULD BE AT FAR GREATER RISK THAN YOU REALISE. THIS IS YOUR GUIDE TO STAYING ON THE SWEET SIDE OF THE STATS.

- TOM CHIVERS

When I was training, type 2 diabetes was only seen in late middle age,” says Jane Armitage, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University. “You saw it in 60-year-olds, and you saw it, rarely, in 40-year-olds. Now, I see it in teenagers.”

Back in 80s, just 108 million people were known to have the disease. Today, it is estimated to affect about 463 million, making it one of the world's biggest killers. Here, in South Africa, roughly 6% of the population suffer from the condition, and it's estimated that nearly 80% of all diabetes-related deaths are among people younger than age 60.

By damaging blood vessels, diabetes has the potential to cause problems in any part of the body. It can lead to blindness if it affects blood vessels in the retina; it can cause nerve damage if it affects those in your feet. It causes kidney damage, sometimes leading to renal failure. It increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. These effects are insidious: many people live with the disease for a full decade before they are diagnosed, and around a third of people already have complications – eye damage, kidney damage – by the time it’s identified. According to a report by Diabetes UK, type 2 sufferers can expect to live about 10 years less, on average, than people without it. Yet, despite this grim litany, it remains in many ways a hidden illness.

Sure, we’ve all heard of it, but people rarely run sponsored half-marathons for diabetes like they do for breast cancer. It affects more people in South Africa than all cancers put together, yet charities focused on diabetes are left in the shadows as others take centre stage.