Latest WHO Statistics Reveal One in Ten People Have Elevated Blood Glucose Worldwide
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released its World Health Statistics 2o12 report, compiling data from 194 countries. The report estimates that about 9% of women and 10% of men worldwide have elevated levels of fasting blood glucose – notably, this is the first major report to our knowledge that includes data on blood glucose levels. The report also offers a long-term outlook on the spread of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), which includes diabetes and obesity. Diabetes is only directly responsible for about 3.5% of NCD deaths, although it bears pointing out that diabetes, elevated glucose levels, and obesity all increase the risk of even deadlier NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and coronary heart disease. Indeed, elevated blood glucose, physical inactivity, and being overweight or obese are risk factors that combined account for an estimated 17% of global deaths.
About 12% of the global population is obese, although there’s extreme variance between regions – in the Americas, 36% of people are overweight and a further 26% are obese, while only 11% are overweight and a further 3% are obese in Southeast Asia. Obesity currently accounts for about 2.8 million deaths every year worldwide, primarily due to its links with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol. The WHO hopes to act on this alarming new data by setting targets to prevent and control NCDs, including the development of a global monitoring system to pinpoint the regions most at risk. It is still early days for these efforts, but hopefully this latest confirmation of these disturbing trends will spur governments to action. We are not, however, holding our breath waiting for the US government to act in the near future. –AW
