UN health body sounds alarm on burgeoning diabetes epidemic

Diabetes, a potentially debilitating, painful and fatal disease, is burgeoning worldwide affecting more than 800 million adults and has quadrupled in the past 30 years, reaching new heights as an epidemic.

“We have seen an alarming rise in diabetes over the past three decades, which reflects the increase in obesity, compounded by the impacts of the marketing of unhealthy food, a lack of physical activity and economic hardship,” said World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.