World Health Day 2016: Beat Diabetes
The World Health Organization (WHO) is focusing this year’s World Health Day on Diabetes because the number of diabetes cases has continued to grow over the past several years, but the disease is growing the fastest in low to middle income countries. WHO wants to see those numbers reduced as diabetes is a treatable disease, but not only that, most of the cases can be prevented.
What is diabetes? For those that don’t know:
“Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar, gives us the energy that we need to live. If it cannot get into the cells to be burned as energy, sugar builds up to harmful levels in the blood.”
Those increased levels can cause serious harm to every major body system from organs to nerves. There are also two different types of Diabetes, Type I, in which the person’s body does not produce insulin, and Type II, in which the person produces insulin in smaller amounts or the body is unable to use it properly. Type II Diabetes is usually preventable.
Goal of World Health Day 2016
The main goal of World Health Day will be to
“Launch the first Global report on diabetes, which will describe the burden and consequences of diabetes and advocate for stronger health systems to ensure improved surveillance, enhanced prevention, and more effective management of diabetes.”
For more information, please visit : http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2016/event/en/
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