Alarmerende Stijging Diabetici

In de top tien van de meest gelezen artikelen op de site NYTimes. Com staat op de derde plaats een alarmerend artikel over diabeten. Ik weet niet wat de cijfers in Nederland zijn, maar aangezien de Verenigde Staten ons voorland is, denk ik dat we dezelfde ontwikkeling ook hier zullen zien. Het zegt ook iets over onze Westerse cultuur. 'An estimated 800,000 adult New Yorkers -- more than one in every eight -- now have diabetes, and city health officials describe the problem as a bona fide epidemic. Diabetes is the only major disease in the city that is growing, both in the number of new cases and the number of people it kills. And it is growing quickly, even as other scourges like heart disease and cancers are stable or in decline. Already, diabetes has swept through families, entire neighborhoods in the Bronx and broad slices of Brooklyn, where it is such a fact of life that people describe it casually, almost comfortably, as ''getting the sugar'' or having ''the sweet blood.'' But as alarmed as health officials are about the present, they worry more about what is to come. Within a generation or so, doctors fear, a huge wave of new cases could overwhelm the public health system and engulf growing numbers of the young, creating a city where hospitals are swamped by the disease's handiwork, schools scramble for resources as they accommodate diabetic children, and the work force abounds with the blind and the halt… One in three children born in the United States five years ago are expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two… It is a city of immigrants, where newcomers eating American diets for the first time are especially vulnerable. It is also yielding to the same forces that have driven diabetes nationally: an aging population, a food supply spiked with sugars and fats, and a culture that promotes overeating and discourages exercise.' Lees verder: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9907E2DA1F30F93AA35752C0A9609C8B63