diabetes is one of the diseases most common in the whole world . Currently, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) , some 537 millions of adults have this disease associated with glycemia , glucose and insulin .
According to estimates given by the International Diabetes Federation (IDB) , it is estimated that they will be 643 people who have diabetes in 2030. If we focus on Spain , around 6 million people have diabetes , a figure that increased by more than half in the last 10 years.
In this way, it is the second country in Europe with the highest number of patients with this pathology. Furthermore, Spain is among the top ten internationally in terms of healthcare spending on diabetes . And it is that the figure reaches 13. 430 million euros, as published in the 10 th Edition of the Diabetes Atlas.
Health has to step forward
With these data, it is clear that one of the main challenges facing the Health in general and the Spanish, in particular, this year 2022, is the prevention and improvement of care for diabetes .
Key to this is economic investment in, among other measures:
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Diabetes education
- Training in healthy lifestyle habits. This must be done from schools to adulthood, all of which the Spanish Diabetes Federation (FEDE) has been focusing on for some time.
Likewise, and how could it be otherwise, from FEDE it is necessary to incorporate new measures to also respond to specific crises. As the Covid pandemic is being – 19, since it is having a very negative impact on the quality of life of people with diabetes, whether they contract the infection or not, since it limits the adequate continuity of the pathology.
International magnitude of diabetes
But this is nothing new. In fact, the magnitude of diabetes led the World Health Organization (WHO) to accelerate the adoption of urgent measures through a new Global Compact for Diabetes. This was presented in April 2021, which emphasized the need to agree on a set of global targets.
The objective of this plan was clear:
- Prevent risks in people who are not diagnosed
- Improve access to new diabetes drugs
- Reduce mortality that, according to IDF data, was between 6 and 7 million worldwide deaths due to diabetes in 2021.
In parallel, the FEDE has launched the National Pact for diabetes. This document with thirteen proposals to reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes in Spain in the fields of care, training, research and technology.
Among the proposals we find:
- Allocate the necessary resources to improve key areas such as diabetes training for patients and families
- Prevention or early diagnosis. All this in order to improve the care they receive from patients with type 2 diabetes, and prevent their quality of life from being reduced.
- Reduce hospitalizations and admissions to the emergency room.
Improve investment in diabetes
In this sense, and to put on the table the urgency of increasing and improving investment in diabetes in the coming years, the Prevention Program Diabetes (DPP) showed that intensive lifestyle surveillance of patients could reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes by 58% for 3 years. In this way, the increase in associated comorbidities and, consequently, the loss of quality of life among people with this pathology would be avoided.
Juan Francisco Perán, president of FEDE , has declared that «during this 2022 we will to strengthen the work base of the federations and associations that are part of the entity, which focuses on prevention, as well as the development of measures and actions to reduce health complications for those who live with it. We are clear that, as a society, we cannot allow ourselves that the authorities do not take the necessary measures to stop as soon as possible the decrease in the quality of life of people with diabetes «.
