Mexico issues emergency alert over diabetes deaths

According to federal figures, 9.2% of Mexicans suffer from diabetes while 71.2% are obese or overweight, two principal causes of the disease.

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Diabetes and related conditions caused 98,000 deaths in 2015, the Health Secretary said in an interview with Milenio TV.

José Narro said the government issued the alert to raise awareness and highlight the problem, and bring about better coordination of government actions to combat the disease.

“. . . We’re also creating a great communication and health education campaign . . . through which we will identify patients in the early stages of the disease and offer them treatment,” he said.

The largest health service in Mexico, the social security system IMSS, agreed that the incidence of diabetes should be considered an emergency.

Of the 98,000 deaths registered nationally last year, over 21,000 were IMSS patients. The institute performed 4,500 amputations and declared 2,000 people permanently incapacitated for complications related to the disease.

The institute spent 42.8 billion pesos treating cases of diabetes, but the figure is even higher when other conditions caused by it are taken into consideration, such as renal insufficiency, which required an additional 8.1 billion pesos.

If the current trend continues, the institute will have to allocate 350 billion pesos by the year 2050.

One great challenge for the health system is the creation of efficient prevention campaigns. A large number of patients are diagnosed after their condition has deteriorated enough to land them in the emergency room.

Arriola said Mexico went from having a low rate of diabetes in the 1970s to the current epidemiological emergency thanks to three harmful factors: the introduction of refined sugars, saturated fat and sodium in the diets of a large part of the population.

Since then, obesity and overweight have been on the rise and in 90% of diabetes cases, those two conditions can be said to have caused it.

Mexicans are also genetically predisposed to suffer diabetes, and bad eating habits only worsen the situation, Arriola said.